
Class °- 3.4 

Book 



NARRATIVE 



OF AN 



TO 

WARSAW AND WILNA^ 

WITH 

PERSONAL ATTENDANCE 

ON THE 

EMPEROR NAPOLEON, 

DURING THE 

DISASTROUS CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA, 

AND THE 

RETREAT FROM MOSCOWi 



BY M. DE PRADT, 

ARCHBISHOP OF MECHLIN. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION. 



( 

tofflum: (y 
PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, 
PATERNOSTER-ROW ; 

Bj R* $ R, GilbtTt, St. John's Square, ClcrkenweU. 

1816. 






)0^ 



PREFACE 



JSf apoleon has disappeared from the theatre 
of the world. His death to a royal and civil 
life will now admit all kinds of disclosures. 
No sort of interdict any longer exists. He is 
a kind of historical performer, consigned over 
to posterity. 

Though he stands accused before the whole 
universe I have another task to fulfil ; that of 
furnishing explanations, a task by no means 
difficult. Verse may be inspired by indigna- 
tion, but there is no necessity for a poet's abi- 
lities to draw his character, 

For all the good of which Napoleon has 
deprived the world and the evils he has 
created, it has a right to curse him ; still after 
so many years of admiration and of blind 
submission to his authority, few will contend 
for that of insulting him. 

It is very singular that he who of all men 
has lived most in public ; and that he who 
has done and said so much should hitherto 
perhaps have been the least known. 

During the ten years that I have been about 
his person, I have been always sensibly struck 

a2 



IV PREFACE, 



with that want of judgment which this strange 
man manifested on so many occasions. If 
Napoleon himself has been abused we have 
also been equally abused on his account. 

It is long since I have seen him held up as 
a supernatural being; the lower order of peo- 
ple have looked upon him as a man above the 
necessities of nature, his natural and moral 
endowments in their ideas, elevating him 
above the rest of mankind. 

I have passed ten years near his person, 
and I took pride in being about a man who 
has in our days excited as much noise in the 
world as Caesar or Tamerlane in their time. 

I wished to be near those of his partisans 
who have given things a pew face. I have 
observed them with attention, and have re* 
gretted the prepossession of those persons 
which will be a great loss to history. 

From this pre-possession, his admirers fell 
jnto absolute fascination. A thousand times 
I have seen men whose intelligence I was in 
the habit of respecting, come out from his 
council chamber, where he had been prating 
five or six hours upon no other subject than 
the superiority of his own genius ! It is a 
thing not less strange than true that the sang 
froid of Napoleon was never talked of in 
France or any where else. His moral govern- 
ment of Europe has been more absolute than 



PREFACE, V 

•that of his politics. No man before him ever 
held such an absolute sway over the minds of 
so many of his kind. Rome never made peo- 
ple swear per genium Ccesares in the manner 
that Napoleon has done by his own. But 
from these extremes I shall endeavour to de- 
fend myself. 

Fate had so ordered that I should be pre- 
sent at three events which were decisive with 
respect to his final career; viz. the Spanish 
War, the affairs of the Pope, and his invasion 
of Russia. 

I had written an account of the transactions 
in Spain, but I burnt this production in a mo- 
ment when a serious difference with Napoleon, 
convinced me of the danger attending a dis- 
covery of this work ; but I believe I can trust 
to my memory for its re-production on some 
future day. 

I was a member of the council which pre- 
ceded, and that which was sent to Savona. I 
had previously penetrated into the designs of 
Napoleon, and I hope I shall not be accused 
of enhancing my own consequence when I 
assert that owing to the restraint I put upon 
the arm then raised against religion, wretched 
as it is, it has remained without further dete- 
rioration. 

I was well seconded by Regnault de St. 
Jean D'Angely ; and the present state of af« 



Vi PREFACE* 

fairs shall not prevent me from doing hfth jus- 
tice. I always wished to be in a situation to 
write the Ecclesiastical History of France from 
the period of the first Concordat to that of 
Fontainbleau, as the most interesting part of 
modern history, and that of the human mind. 

The invasion of Russia, which has laid the 
foundation of a wall of separation, is one of 
the most stupendous events of the last twenty- 
five years, and may still give birth to others, 
is too interesting to induce me to withhold my 
information respecting the sources of this 
great change. This I shall transfer over to 
history, as a guide given by truth, with a wish 
to enlighten the present and future ages upon 
an event which involves so many others. This 
is in reality an interesting attempt. 

It is necessary that France and Europe 
should know how their affairs have been ma- 
naged, and in what manner the mighty Co- 
lossus before whom they used to tremble has 
fallen to the ground. 

I can do nothing better than bring Napo- 
leon upon the stage as often as possible. He 
shall describe himself; the best mode of paint- 
ing that I know of. 

As to his character he owes it entirely to 
the Revolution. Respecting his mind, or 
what has been called his genius, nothing has 
been more celebrated, though nothing lm 

6 



PREFACE. \H 

been less appreciated. Some thought it im- 
mense; others deemed it a pigmy; what some 
thought sublime others looked upon as ridi- 
culous. At present, since the meteor has en- 
tirely disappeared, no persons seem perfectly 
agreed on the subject; a fact which shews 
how seldom it is a cool judgment with a due 
consideration of times, circumstances, and 
means, have any weight with the generality 
of people in forming their judgment of the 
characters of men. Certainly an immense 
weight has not pressed upon the world without 
containing in it some specific gravity. This 
brilliant military career has not been made in 
the absence of all the qualities that constitute 
the great captain. Immense labours of all 
kinds have not been prosecuted and completed 
with an inconceivable degree of constancy, 
without some portion of those qualifications 
that constitute a statesman of the first order. 
Still calamities the world had never expe- 
rienced before, an antipathy without example ; 
a situation in which no man had ever stood in, 
and lost by a succession of faults, that for their 
extent and obstinacy surpass any by which 
any other chief was ruined; a conclusion de- 
spicable on account of its baseness, and more 
shameful still to the world at large; to those 
who had paid, rather than to him who had 
received their adorations; such is the pro- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

blem presented by a career divided between 
the highest flight and the lowest fall ; between 
the most dazzling splendour, and the most 
abject misery,; between the extremes of a 
man of the first ability and the mere dri- 
veller. 

Napoleon had certainly a great mind ; but 
it was formed upon the Orientals. 

By a natural inclination he always indulged 
this habit ; though notwithstanding the mag- 
nitude of his plans and purpose, he always fell 
into mean and pitiful details. His first propo- 
sals were invariably great ; the next, mean 
and contemptible. The same with respect to 
his mind as to his money, he was alternately 
mean and magnificent, penurious and prodigal. 
His genius resembling that of a monarch, or a 
mountebank, made him appear sometimes like 
a hero, and at other times like harlequin. 

All extreires met in him: he who had 
commanded the Alps to abase themselves, and 
the Simplon to be levelled, the sea to approach 
or withdraw itself from his shores, concludes 
by delivering himself up to an English cruizer. 

The whim and caprice which attached to 
every part of the character of Napoleon ap- 
pears in that facility of speech that he re- 
ceived from nature ; but which from the fre- 
quency of repetition, manifestly argued a 
want of invention. Whenever he met with a 



PREFACE. IX 

happy idea or expression, he would use it in 
conversation for several weeks together, and 
that with all persons indiscriminately. His 
mind was certainly more active than his in- 
vention; for, even in common discourse he 
did not possess that degree of fruitfulness ne- 
cessary for an everlasting talker. With him 
this indulgence was of the first necessity ; this 
he placed at the head of his prerogatives as 
none could interrupt him when he chose to 
talk alone. But if he attached so much plea- 
sure to these eternal discourses, he also 
placed in them no small share of his power; 
as he never imagined that any person Gould 
evade the force of his rhetoric. Every enemy 
who thus came within his reach he flattered 
himself he could subdue by an irresistible 
charm. 

Hence he neglected no opportunity to pro- 
cure interviews with princes and with people 
of power or influence of any description, al- 
wavs supposing he should certainly gain them 
to his party. He, however, was not destitute 
of the charms of conversation ; nor did he 
ever exert these more effectually than when by 
a kind of easy condescension, or some cordial 
expression of confidence, the syren, sweetening 
his words, and softening his voice, penetrated 
your heart with the appearance of opening his 
own. This to the hearer was the moment of 



X PREFACE, 

danger. One of the most striking traits in 
this singular character, was his facility in 
misplacing all his faculties and talents : the 
whole of these he always employed upon the 
object of his attention, whether this happened 
to be a mite or an elephant, an isolated indi- 
vidual, or a numerous army ; and in these mo* 
ments of pre-occupation, he would have borne 
upon one just the same as upon the other. It 
is true that a moment after, he seemed to have 
no recollection of the object that had so 
earnestly engaged him, when he seemed 
equally as ready to ruin an individual or an 
empire. 

He had spoken and that was enough. The 
cloudy storm perhaps dissolved in a gentle 
shower. He wished for things, and forgot 
them like an infant. Nothing can be more 
singular, nor more strictly fact. I appeal to 
all who have known him. I heard what I 
have related with the intention of committing 
it to memory. These particulars are but few 
out of many — for the conduct observed in the 
palace of the Thuilleries was much like that 
in the east, where the monarchs are served but 
not observed. 

Endowed with wonderful sagacity in the 
affairs of common life; not deficient in wit; 
quick in appreciating ideas and their connec- 
tions, either new or remote; abounding in 



PREFACE. XI 

lively and picturesque images and animated 
expressions, making even the incorrectness of 
his language subservient to his penetration ; 
always eccentric; using sophistry and sub- 
tilty, and restless to an excess : for though a 
distinguished mathematician, he would never 
argue but upon his own ground ; here he 
would defend either truth or error with the 
exactitude of a geometrician. Thus his own 
mistakes were multiplied to infinity; yet 
though he deceived others, he was more fre- 
quently the deceived than the deceiver. Hence 
arose that remarkable aversion which he was 
observed to entertain against truth : this how- 
ever he did not oppose as demonstrative truth ; 
but as some absurdity or incompatibility with 
that which appeared to be the truth to him. 
With him illusions prevailed much above 
falsehoods ; and most of his opposition to re- 
alities arose from weakness i hence too, the 
terms of contempt and disdain were conti- 
nually in his mouth. His optics were different 
from those of other men. If to these qualities 
we add his pride ami perversion, the intoxica- 
tion of success; his habit of drinking as it 
were out of an enchanted cup, and his giddi- 
ness in consequence of snuffing up the in- 
cense of universal flattery, we shall find a 
clue to the developement of the mind of a 
man, who joined to his whimsicalities, the 



Xll FftEFACE. 

best and worst qualities to be found amongst 
mankind ; the most of majesty in his display 
of sovereignty, and who was the most pe- 
remptory in his commands. If we add to 
these all that is base and ignoble in a cha- 
racter who in his greatest undertakings joined 
assassination to the subversion of thrones, we 
shall find him that kind of Jupiter Scapin 
hitherto unknown upon the theatre of the 
world. 

The folly of Napoleon was not of that 
species which deranges the mental faculties, 
but that disorganization of ideas arising from 
exaggeration and bombast. Hence every 
thing was overdone; his commands were 
issued without calculation, and expences in- 
curred without reckoning; and hence, be- 
cause many obstacles were overcome, it was 
wisely inferred that all would give way ; or 
rather that obstacles would cease to exist. 
The facility with which Napoleon had usually 
been obeyed, at length led him to imagine, 
that to make his wishes succeed, he had only 
to issue his orders ! He had indeed reduced 
his system to a few forms ; those of giving out 
his behests, and charging his Ministers to 
carry them into effect. 

Such was the folly of Napoleon ; and of 
this, I think I could trace its gradations, at* 
taching its origin to the battle of Wagram, 



PREFACE. Xlll 

and his marriage with the Archduchess of 
Austria ; an epoch when probably his reason 
ceased to guide him, and when he no longer 
thought it necessary; when he abandoned 
himself without reserve to those exaggerations 
which have completely disorganized France, 
and terminated in his own rum. 

This succession of crimes leads me to no- 
tice a species of character in the French na- 
tion, unknown before : according to which a 
man, when bearing only a simple command, 
under a political party ; and one of the mildest 
of the human race, becomes all at once a 
monster, committing- and conniving at every 
crime, and thus exhibiting in one and the 
same person, the tender father, the affec- 
tionate and faithful husband, the generous 
friend, the humane master ; but one who, ne- 
vertheless, if his politics are touched upon, at 
once flies off in the most opposite direction to 
all these good qualities. He thus tacitly blas- 
phemes the Deity, as if he had formed the 
soul of two different natures; as if every 
thing prohibited by morality was allowable in 
politics. But as the evil that has been done 
is not that of a mere individual ; it may 
be thought necessary to produce the rest of the 
criminals. The number of these we have 
confined as much as possible in taking mea- 
sures to prevent this history from affecting any 



XIV PREFACE, 

other than their political characters; justly 
supposing the right of interference to be con- 
fined to this alone. Every person engaged in 
public life, is exposed to a kind of profit or 
loss with respect to history. The men I 
allude to would have willingly accepted my 
praises, let them now bear with my censure. 
Resides, no great forbearance can be due to 
those who had no regard for the honour of 
their nation ; but wanting in this, they are 
amenable to all. Every person has a right 
to expose his own reputation at his own proper 
risk ; but no man can suppose he has any pri- 
vilegeibr making free with the national cha- 
racter. We would not disturb the ashes of 
French honour ; but let those who from in- 
terest, vanity, or baseness of mind, have con- 
tributed to the digging of its grave ; let them, 
I say, be cited before the tribunal of France 
and that of posterity ; let every Frenchman 
who has it in his power, become a Tacitus 
to each modern Sejanus, or probably he may 
become the subject of complaint and re- 
proach. There is some difference between 
the Narcisusses of Rome and those of Paris ; 
the former did not bring the Parthians twice 
to the gates of that city, though the latter 
have twice brought all Europe into the heart 
of France. The Roman empire did not suffer 
in its greatness by the abuse wiiich these 



PREFACE. XV 

Romans made of their influence, whilst 
France, by the connivance of Napoleon's 
freed-men, has lost its glory, its conquests, 
and its political existence. 

It is hoped that Frenchmen, and readers 
in general, may derive two advantages at least 
from this work: first, that the fall of Na- 
poleon, resembling that of Phaeton after setting 
the world on fire, will warn the ambitious not 
to aspire to the guidance of the chariot of the 
sun ; and that those who think differently, will 
not hesitate to return the reins of these formi- 
dable coursers to their legitimate master, in 
imitation of their celestial prototypes, who will 
obey none but the Father of light. Secondly, 
that men should be persuaded how much it 
is against their own interests to open the 
paths of crime to the heads of nations, and 
thus furnish the latter with reasons for de- 
spising them. For granting that the excesses 
of Napoleon have been beyond example, may 
it not be asked whether his views of their 
enormity have not been diminished in conse- 
quence of the many examples of the baseness 
of human nature by which his objects have 
been seconded ? 

Napoleon's greatest influence has been ex- 
ercised over the lowest passions of the human 
heart. This was a string upon which he 
always knew how to play. But had he not 



Xvi PREFACE. 

too much reason to suppose, that these were 
always best disposed towards him ; and that 
they lent themselves with little or no hesita- 
tion to any hand that offered ? 

Certainly his attempts would have been re- 
pulsed, had he more frequently been opposed 
by the impenetrable barrier of virtue and mo- 
rality. He might probably have paid more 
respect to mankind at large, had they paid 
more to themselves. He himself might have put 
a period to his wanderings, if the unwearied 
patience of mankind had not taught him, 
that they might be safely stretched beyond all 
bounds. 

My own experience has also taught me, 
that Napoleon knew how to estimate personal 
dignity, and that he had not sufficient hardi- 
hood to resist those who acted upon it from a 
principle of just resentment. 

It is to be hoped, that politicians of all 
classes, in every country to whom the affairs 
of nations are entrusted, will contemplate, in 
the crush of the greatest power that ever 
existed, the just and wholesome retribution of 
Machiavelianism. Never was its confusion 
more strongly marked. 

Fraud and injustice, the art of sowing 
divisions amongst men, and arming them 
against each other, had alone contributed to 
the elevation of a power before which we have 



PREFACE. XvH 

.all trembled. The sun of justice has at 
length arisen upon this work of iniquity, and 
it has melted. A coalition, which for twenty 
years past, all politicians exclaimed against 
as morally impossible, finally arose out of the 
despair of nations ; from the salutary appre^- 
hensions of sovereigns, and the dangers an^ 
xiounced to the whole universe. 

Virtue alone has been the cement of this 
unhoped for union, though so long desired. 
It would have been a hundred times dissolved 
if it had not been held together by other ties 
than those of a political nature ; this we are 
authorized to believe from too many autho- 
rities ; but its grand principles were genero- 
sity, magnanimity, and a solicitude for the 
welfare of human nature, since which nothing" 
has been able to resist it. Royalty has shewn 
itself as it is, and as it ought to be, the pro- 
tectoress of humanity. It is true, the blood 
of the people has been shed ; but it has been 
in the cause of justice and morality, and for 
the preservation of the human species, and 
thus being shed for the political redemption 
of men, it has been nobly and piously shed. 
This war shall therefore prevent many others ; 
the Temple of Janus shall not be opened here- 
after for any pitiful interests of mere po- 
licy. Justice and Morality alone shall guard 
its portals, and the universe consoled and 

a 



XV111 PREFACE. 

breathing freely after a long series of cala- 
mities, without apprehension of their return, 
shall erect a monument to the memory of 
those princes who have caused a moral and 
generous policy to triumph, at the foot of 
which the image of Machiavelianism shall 
appear trembling and in chains. 

The Quarterly Review for 1816, speaking 
of this work, observes, " That its author, 
M. de Pradt, Archbishop of Mechlin, was in 
fact a considerable person, and a man of 
talents. He had been one of Buonaparte's 
attendants at Bayonne in 1808 : one of his de- 
putation to the Pope at Savona in 1811 ; and 
was afterwards attached to the imperial house- 
hold in the office of Grand Almoner of France. 
He appears to be a person of quick epi- 
grammatic conversation, of a speculative and 
sanguine disposition, and of talents not inca- 
pable of those coups de theatre, which, under 
Napoleon's regime, were considered as coups 
de etat : this qualification probably recom- 
mended him to Buonaparte, who did not per- 
ceive till he came to employ him without 
coadjutors, that 

" Tel brille au second rang qui s'eclipse au premier." 

And that he whose chief talent seems to be 
a power of describing, with liveliness and 
force, the transactions of others, may not be 



PREFACE. XIX 

equal to the conduct of great transactions 
himself. 

" M. De Pradt attended the Emperor to 
Dresden as his Almoner, and was there se- 
lected for the important office of ambassador 
to Poland ; and in this character he had op- 
portunities of observing his master, both in 
the high flow of his vanity in the outset of 
the invasion of Russia, and in the lowest 
ebb of his fortunes at its close : these oppor- 
tunities, with a previous intercourse of ten 
years, enabled him to paint in a scattered and 
diffuse, but in a very striking and forcible 
style, the character of Buonaparte, and this 
portrait, in fact, constitutes the chief value of 
the work," 



a S 



INTRODUCTION. 



X HIS work w*as composed in the month of March, 
1814, in the midst of the combats that Napoleon 
maintained at the gates of Paris ; in the midst of 
the dangers to which he exposed the capital ; in the 
midst of those to which he himself was exposed, by 
the opposition to a power, the fall of which, then, 
appeared a greater phenomenon than that of its 
exaltation. 

It is amusing, at this time, to hear the convenient 
insults, and safe bravadoes, directed against the 
power at which these prudent assailants trembled, 
while the lion was roaring round the capital, and 
this after two successive falls that has extinguished 
and brought it to an end. But whilst this lion over- 
threw one assailant after another, and his fate was 
so doubtful, as to threaten his return to power, and 
leave those persons without an asylum, who had 
dared to swerve from the line of servitude chalked out 
for them, then probably something was due to that 
courage, that could look with coolness at the ap- 
proaching catastrophe, and prepare the materials of 
a history, the loss of which would have been irre- 
parable* 



INTRODUCTION, XXI 

This work was not intended to see the light, till 
the arrival of an epoch, that circumstances alone 
could determine, and its publication has been re- 
fused to the pressing solicitations often made to the 
author, when he has read some detached parts of 
this history to some of the most select societies in 
Paris. 

These motives of refusal exist no longer. When 
a nation has been once precipitated from the height 
of power and glory, into an abyss of miseries, little 
hesitation is used in sinking it still lower; when no 
reckoning is made of engagements, or of the dignity 
of those with whom they are made; of the dreadful 
consequences to a whole nation, or to all Europe ; 
or of the violation of plighted faith; then, as i~ in 
defiance of all these considerations, an attempt is 
made by Napoleon, to resume that part he had 
played before, till he was forced to abandon it. 

Under this new eruption of ambition and extra- 
vagance, the people are intoxicated with fury ; the 
faculties of their minds are alienated and directed 
towards the most odious sophisms, calculated to 
maintain a doctrine equally detestable, and a degree 
of the blackest perfidy. Thus the people are de- 
voted to death and ruin, by the means of lies and, 
deception, and given up without defence into the 
hands of enemies, drawn upon them from all parts 
of the universe, whilst the ordinary course of flight 
protects the most culpable against the evils which. 



XXil INTRODUCTION. 

he has brought upon his unhappy victims. Then, 
surely the time for keeping any measures with him 
is past; even duties have changed their nature. All 
obligations have ceased with respect to the author of 
these evils, and we have only to attend to the objects 
of his tyranny. 

Twice has Napoleon drawn upon France and 
Paris, the armed population of all Europe ; twice 
has this formidable eruption, which France has sur- 
vived by a miracle, been the fruit of an ambition, 
that nothing could satisfy ; of a perturbation of spi- 
rit, which admitted of no repose ; of a presumption, 
too blind to be taught; of an obstinacy, that no 
arguments could overcome. Twice has Napoleon 
overturned the vessel, of which he was the pilot, 
without any concern for the crew, content to save 
himself in a gilded barge. 

It is evident that Napoleon has invariably looked 
upon men, as so many projectiles, made to be thrown 
against his enemies. He shipped them on board his 
vessel of state, like so mu^h ballast or lumber, which, 
his purpose being served, was only fit to be thrown 
into the sea. 

Men equally rash and presumptuous, have se- 
conded this last attempt of Napoleon against 
France and Europe. From a sovereign of the 
Island of Elba, they wished to make him sovereign 
of France. A degree of infatuation, equally fatal 
and inexplicable, was manifested in his favour from 



INTRODUCTIONS XXlll 

one end of France to the other ; the result of the 
fascination of the passions ; but which dispersed on 
the appearance of clearer light, and those represen- 
tations which none before bad the courage to make 
to the eyes of the public, exhibiting a succession of 
scenes, which in consequence of the witchery of 
theatrical management, were not even supposed to 
have had any existence previous to their exposure. 

A witness to the facts which I have retraced, a 
principal actor in some of these important scenes s 
the author would think himself wanting in contribut- 
ing to the cure of a great nation, if he were any 
longer to withhold his knowledge of an order of 
things, the manifestation of which, is of a nature t® 
dissipate a part of the illusions and the prejudices 
upon which the first empire of Napoleon over France 
was founded ; and of which he also availed himself 
in his second attempt. 

It is hard to say whether folly or wickedness 
preponderated in this fatal enterprize. It was evi- 
dent that Napoleon had no means of supporting 
this contest ; and that even a more successful re- 
sistance than that of Waterloo could not have pro- 
longed his power beyond July ; and that conqueror, 
or conquered, in less than three months, he would 
have regretted his leaving Elba. 

Possibly the measures I took for retarding this 
publication, may have contributed to the retention 
of 3l number of persons in those errors, who might 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

have been disabused and preserved from the danger 
of throwing themselves into the arms of a man, who 
could evidently do nothing more for France, than 
present her with the resentment of the whole world., 
Still, as long as the author of so many evils has any 
partisans, it is the duty of every man to endeavour 
to recal them ; the healing of these diseased persons, 
is of the first importance to the health of society at 
large ; for, otherwise, it is a certainty that they will 
never cease to disturb its order. 

This work having been written in March, 1814, 
it was necessary, when speaking of Napoleon, to 
adopt the denominations then in use. To have 
styled him Buonaparte in 1 SI 2, would have been 
as much out of place, as to call him the Emperor at 
present. Names do not confer any rights ; they 
are no more than convenient designations of tilings 
positive and existing. They are given to be under- 
stood. This observation will be comprehended by 
those for whom it is intended ; others, surely, in the 
appellations I have used, will see nothing more 
than we ourselves have seen ; on one side they will 
pot suppose any rights incompatible with the subject, 
any more than undue favour or affection towards 
the other. 



Narrative 

OF AN EMBASSY, S?c. 



IN one of those profound reveries to which the 
Emperor was subject, the following exclamation was 
heard to escape him, one man less, and I should have 
been master of the world. Who then is the man 
who in some degree partaking of the power of the 
Divinity, could have said to this imperial torrent, 
Non ibis amplius : no further shalt thou proceed ? 
Where was his arms, his treasures, and his means 
to arrest this proud despot of France and Europe, 
who upon the wrecks of thrones, nations, and laws, 
one foot in blood, and the other upon ruirts, darted 
in idea towards the limits of the world, panting as it 
were for the dominion of the universe ? 

This man was myself; and could this be granted, 
I have saved the world ; and I might then presume 
that its gratitude will never be equal to the benefit 
conferred ; however, far be it from me to claim this 
pre-eminence. 

This exclamation of the Emperor Napoleon ; the 
allegations a thousand times repeated that I did not 
perform my mission, by an expression familiar to 
this sovereign, similar to those of the heads of the 
Revolution, who have at the same time exhausted 
their language and their ideas; all these imputations 
I say are absolutely destitute of foundation. The 

B 



% NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

proofs of this shall soon be adduced ; but in reality 
these accusations ought to be attributed, first, to the 
disposition of a prince, who having placed his own. 
infallibility among the most rigorous axioms of geo- 
metry, was by no means inclined to impute the 
miscarriage of his enterprises to himself. This was- 
always the case, particularly in his first reverse, which 
made the deepest impression. This reverse, which 
astonished his own self-love, did not permit him to 
come to any explanation of his conduct ; but only to 
criminate the persons who concurred with him in the 
undertaking. One scape goat at least was necessary; 
and he, who could have pointed him out, did not 
ehuse to name himself. 

The failures were also imputable to the little at- 
tention that the Emperor paid to circumstances that 
passed about him, as well as to the want of the ad- 
vice of persons in his suite, and whose duty it was 
to have offered their advice. 

The Emperor is profoundly ignorant ; the natural 
restlessness of his mind is such as to carry him ha- 
bitually into speculations of every kind, without 
permitting him to acquire the necessary information. 
He dreams or speaks ; signs state papers and reads 
nothing ; his loquacity extends to every thing ; but 
investigates nothing. It is sufficient to see him read 
a book, &c. to form an idea of his mind and manner; 
the leaves fly beneath his fingers; he just glances 
over the pages, and in a very short time the poor 
writer is almost always rejected with some mark of 
contempt, or some of the common expressions of 
disdain. Stuff! nonsense! chimeras ! a constituent t 
% jansenist ! This last word is the maximum of his 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. S 

reproaches. With his head constantly in the clouds, 
his flight is always towards the ernpyreum ; from 
this point of elevation, he undertakes to view the 
earth with the eye of an eagle, and when he descends, 
to walk over it like a giant. 

Certainly, knowledge is not to be acquired in this 
manner among weak mortals. This is nothing more 
or less than knowing things in the mass ; or rather 
the way to know nothing as it should be known. 
Hence the Emperor was unacquainted both with 
men and things in France. He brought on events, 
and drew them after him ; but he was ignorant of 
the consequences. Some sketches, some traits of 
discernment, some flashes of memory, nearly con- 
stituted the whole fund of his information, in the 
same manner as a few pamphlets composed the whole 
of his library. It was necessary to be near him, and 
above all, to have travelled with him, to form any 
idea of the ignorance that occasionally gave birth to 
some very pleasant mistakes with respect to men ; 
as well as the grossest ideas of things, I have wit- 
nessed these upon more than one occasion ; and in 
proper time and place I shall produce some striking 
examples of them. 

The Emperor never loses sight of an idea of his 
own. This is a kind of chace from which nothing 
ran turn him as long as it occupies his mind, every 
thing else is lost upon him; wonderful indeed, though 
much at odds in appearance to the genius and repu- 
tation of the French government, any agent of which, 
provided he opposes no obstacle to the Emperor's 
views, may be in a manner independent under the 
sway of the most violent despotism, and commit at 

b 2 



4 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

many follies as he pleases, with impunity, just in 
the same manner as he may do good without attract- 
ing any notice. 

All this is extremely singular, and may appear 
new to many people ; and they may protest against 
such criticism as the mania of imagination ; but if 
they will condescend to recollect that all this hap- 
pened under the empire of Napoleon, no further il- 
lustration will be needful. 

The numerous objects which the Emperor glories 
in embracing, under the idea of an imperious neces- 
sity, has formed, and always will form an invincibl© 
obstacle to his intimate knowledge of any thing, or 
to his passing a mature judgment of things in detail. 
But with Napoleon, and in the French empire, every 
thing is seen in masses; individuality is too small 
and trivial for the notice of these great men ; these 
superior geniusses who have only need to skim the 
surface of things. All their portraits are mere 
sketches ; and from these, more or less vague, they 
form their judgment of mankind. A single trait 
forms a character, and they have no time to bestow 
more than one of these upon each portrait. 

A'govemment of this kind should have nothing 
about it subject to the vicissitudes of time. To grant 
and to accept are measures of brevity ; but woe to 
those persons, who, to justify themselves, have need 
of time, that universal agent of all things here below. 
If we trace the revolutionary government to its origin, 
we shall find, that frequently assailed by storms and 
hurricanes, it has been shaken, overturned, and 
displaced, without any of those resources, which in 
other places, are the safeguards of suffering huma- 



TO WARSAW AND WILtf A. 5 

rAty. France, distracted and abased, had become 
an object regarded without astonishment and without 
pity, by its numerous assailants, whilst he by whom 
she had been overthrown, was pursuing his course, 
leaping and bounding at random over those whom 
he had elevated or ruined. Thus has France been 
condemned to exhaust the remains of a degraded ex- 
istence, in the agonizing attempts of desperation, 
or otherwise to seek for that reparation which chance 
rather than remorse might possibly afford. Unhappy 
indeed is that nation where indifference looks on, 
and events are left to take their own course. 

This kind of dreadful distraction attaching itself 
to the immensity of the affairs of France, and espe- 
cially to its undue extent, is one of the greatest 
scourges that has pressed upon this unhappy nation. 

I have already observed, that the means of infor- 
mation were withheld from the Emperor by those very 
persons whose first duty it was always to preserve 
those channels open ; still it must be acknowledged, 
that he only suffered from an inconvenience mostly 
of his own creation. Two counsellors only were 
always suffered to approach him, and grew with his 
strength ; namely, terror and flattery. These were 
his guards and his advisers, though it was impossible 
for these to insure him either safety or information. 
All the talents, all the exertions of those admitted 
into his presence, were compelled to bear upon one 
single point ; to guess at his meaning, and to render 
it intelligible to others. This was the acme of all 
their acquisitions. 

An exception may nevertheless be made in favour 
of two ministers, whom Napoleon in the plenitude 



6 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

of his power, thought he might dispense with, merely 
on account of those qualifications which ought to 
have rendered them the more estimable. He felt 
himself incommoded by their rising fame, and that 
independence of mind which they had preserved 
amidst the general servility. He dreaded their 
aspiring to a participation in the glory he had ac- 
quired ; this was the real cause of their disgrace. 
He could not bear the approximation of any talent 
without servility. Napoleon had formed a project, 
unknown to mankind from the earliest a^es of so- 
ciety, that of governing without advisers, that of 
proscribing all counsel. I have heard him furiously 
exclaiming, Des Cornells a moi i Des Co?iseils ! But 
the want of advice was his ruin : probably had he 
retained those two men which his good fortune had 
brought about him, he might still have shone with 
that eclat which he began to lose from the moment 
they left him. The pleasure of domineering over 
men of middling talents, of governing at his ease, 
and making them feel the weight of his superiority ; 
this pitiful indulgence has cost him dear: he has 
paid for it with the loss of his crown, which would 
have been no great calamity, if this had not also 
cost France all that was most precious, its blood, its 
honour, its riches, and its rank among nations. 

Thus did the Emperor repel every kind of infor- 
mation which did not immediately assimilate with his 
own ideas ; and then his displeasure was always at- 
tended with such an inundation of violence and 
abuse, that it could not but operate as a sufficient 
warning to every observer, never to offer him any 
thing he was not predisposed to receive. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 7 

Terror and flattery may be said to have been two 
centinels that continually watched over him ; so that 
as no wholesome advice could possibly reach him, 
he resembled that Sultan, who having pronounced 
the punishment of death upon any person who should 
dare to suggest the possibility of his decease, abso- 
lutely fell a sacrifice to his own precautions, because 
the physicians being intimidated, would not venture 
to mention the malady he laboured under. 

The injustice of Napoleon's complaint is therefore 
evident. With the remorse which he may have 
brought upon himself, I have nothing to do, I must 
confine myself to those important consequences which 
have arisen from the abortion of his schemes, and to 
those which may yet result from them in the present 
and future ages ; but I may be permitted to repeat, 
that I should never have mentioned the office I exe- 
cuted under him, and of which I should have been 
ashamed, had it not owed its existence to the ma- 
lignancy and the disorder of the head of its author. 

Nothing was farther from my ideas than that inde- 
fatigable application of which I have been an instru- 
ment, under a man whose turbulent activity knew no 
repose ; a man, who raised from the lowest order of 
society, to an eminence unequalled before, and that 
by a nation who only asked him to heal the wounds 
with which they were covered.- Tbb man thought 
of nothing but enlarging these wounds, and to render 
them incurable ; and who, whilst he aspired to pass 
for the restorer of religion, and borrowed its aid on 
all occasions, was nevertheless its most bitter enemy. 
This man dragging its venerable chief from dungeon 
to dungeon, chained the very hands who had con* 



8 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

secrated his impious front with the sign only re- 
served for that of kings. This man, who had been 
raised to the head of monarchies, thought of nothing 
but the humiliation and subjugation of kings ; and 
who dispensing kingdoms and thrones, at the same 
time destroyed royalty by those changes, which were 
calculated to degrade every kind of dignity. Thus 
Napoleon made and unmade kings ; and this man 
carried into every act of sovereignty, such a degree 
of the spirit of contradiction, despotism, and incon- 
sistency, as to outrage all around him, by the wanton 
display of the greatest power that ever existed ; in- 
cessantly occupied in destroying the works of its own 
hands ; in setting up for the purpose of pulling down; 
in hazarding every thing for the indulgence, the fan- 
cies of a day,- whilst these were only the prelude to 
an eternal succession of them. 

Is there a being endowed with sense or reason, 
who has not, a thousand times, groaned under those 
continual eruptions of anger thrown out every 
moment from this volcano, covering one with flame, 
and another with mire, shaking and overturning 
every thing within its reach ; and like Etna or Vesu.- 
vius, overwhelming trees and plants, with its lava ; 
or reducing them to ashes, and destroying, indis- 
criminately, both root and bud ? 

What maiij with any consistent ideas, of policy 
or moral% could have applauded those convenient 
invasions, \n which taking England as an example, 
Napoleon once declared, that Rome belonged to 
him, as a descendant from Charlemagne, upon the 
principle, that no man could reign under the au- 
thority of a priest ? Jle inferred, that as the fi>$t 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 9 

hero had been a soldier of fortune, it was necessary 
that every king should be a soldier. 

Another time, taking a pen in his hand, he traced 
out his empire, as extending from the Scheldt to the 
shores of the Baltic ; including in this space, the 
territories of those princes, who first learnt from the 
Moniteur, that they had been struck out of the list, 
like so many clerks, and who, under the new title of 
Princes froisses, were to receive no recompense, but 
an imaginary indemnification, subject to endless 
adjournments. 

What man, under the influence of reason, or even 
of decency, has not a hundred times revolted at the 
painful sensations, occasioned by the insolence and 
bad faith of Napoleon, and at the sophistry and 
derision which so frequently accompanied them ? — 5 
These, with contempt, is to every honest man, the 
most insupportable. I allude to the announce- 
ments in the Moniteur, which for so many years 
past, had been the pillory upon which Napoleon 
had equally exposed kings, ministers, and every man 
bold enough to contradict him. Upon this pillory, 
at once the depository of his sublime thoughts, his 
lowest reproaches, and his blustering menaces, has 
been affixed in striking characters, during the last 
ten years, the decrees, carrying with them the de- 
thronement of every prince, who had sufficient teme- 
rity to permit the purchase of an ell of English 
cloth ; or to allow of any point of contact with a 
nation, cut off by his authority alone, from all the 
rest of Europe, whilst he himself, was in the habit of 
issuing hundreds of licenses, authorizing his subject^ 
%q trade with the English, 



10 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

There is no Frenchman, who entertains a proper 
idea of his own interests, but must deplore this aggre- 
gation of heterogenous elements, in a pretended fra- 
ternity, in which the affinities, created by brute 
force, that supported it, were infinitely outnumbered 
by the antipathies of natural repulsion. Who could 
not but sigh in beholding so many new interests, 
often incompatible with themselves, sharing that at- 
tention, which ought to have been bestowed upon the 
country? All the time lost upon the Romans, the 
Hollanders, and the Hamburghers, was, in a man- 
ner, stolen from each Frenchman ; who, in placing 
Napoleon at the head of his affairs, did not imagine 
he was to concern himself with those of the whole 
world. Most certainly this was the sense of the 
eighteenth of Brumaire. 

I will now return to my subject, and state the 
true causes of the failure of my embassy to Poland, 
for the sake of uniting the French and Poles, in a 
common effort against Russia, and therein of the 
ruinous effects that followed. The causes of this 
failure, were as follow : — 1. The Emperor Napoleon. 
2. The Duke of Bassano. 3. The Poles them- 
selves. 4. The excellent defensive system of the 
Russians. 5. The general delirium and mistaken 
views of the French cabinet throughout the whole 
business. 6. The separation of Lithuania from the 
Duchy of Warsaw, and the answer of the Emperor 
at Wilna, to the deputation of the Diet. 7. The 
special instructions of the Duke of Bassano to me, 
not to involve myself in politics, but to confine 
my attentions to procuring subsistence for the army. 

This series of events, this mass of facts constituted 



TO WARSAW AND WJLNA. 11 

the true cause of the failure of the expedition, and 
not that, which the malignant pride of Napoleon, 
in his random mode of pronouncing his flippant 
judgment, has been pleased to impute to me. 

Here a very important question presents itself. 
Who was the author of the Russian war ? Public 
opinion has imputed it to Napoleon ; but his par- 
tizans, his toad-eaters, and his agents, both volun- 
teers and hirelings, have strained every nerve, to 
persuade the world, that this quarrel originated en- 
tirely with Russia, and that Napoleon acted only 
the defensive. The Duke of Bassano repeated this 
at Warsaw, upon his return from Wilna, with that 
appearance of conviction and self-satisfaction, which 
the world knows he possesses on most occasions. 

According to the line of duty which I have pre- 
scribed to myself, as highly necessary at the present 
period, rather than dilate upon other subjects, I shall 
confine myself to relations best calculated to form 
a clue to the labyrinths of a history hitherto obscure. 
A discussion, closely connected with the Emperor's 
personal conduct, upon facts not generally known, 
though very interesting in themselves, and well 
suited to the illustration of his character, is the 
principal object of these pages. 

From his birth to the period of his elevation to 
the throne, Napoleon has cherished the wish of 
lording it over the world. At both ends of the 
ladder he has been still the same ; the same when a 
poor isolated and obscure character, as when he be- 
came one of the most distinguished and powerful 
sovereigns. In situations thus different, he has 
never ceased to dream of thrones and dominion ; of 



It Narrative of an embassy 

infinite and unceasing ascension ; of the agitation of 
states, political catastrophes, &c. these have been 
the constant nourishment of his mind, equally with 
Machiavel, his sole instructor. His stomach always 
rejected every other aliment; and hence condemning 
the most eminent writers in a mass, he observed to 
M. Jacobi, " Tacitus is a writer of romances ; Gib- 
bon is a declaimer; Machiavel is the only book one 
can read." In fact, these are the first words I 
heard him utter, at one of the levees at which I was 
present, on the 9th of September, 1 804, after having 
been presented to him in the morning. 

Of the progress he has made under his master, 
Machiavel, we have been sufficient witnesses. 
" There are two tottering thrones," said he, " that 
require my support, that of Constantinople and 
Persia." This was in 1794, when he was neglected, 
soon after his services in the siege of Toulon. 

I have likewise been told by a general, who was 
present at a council of war, held to consider of the 
attack on that city, that he spoke in a tone so high 
and commanding, that he might have been taken for 
an accredited general of long service, rather than a 
novice just entering upon his career. 

Marshal Duroc informed me, that coming sud- 
denly to the camp in Italy, in 1796, he kept the. 
generals and all those about him, at the same dis- 
tance, as if he had been amongst his guards at the 
Louvre. 

- Another time, asking the marshal, my friend and 
relation, who had better opportunities of knowing 
Napoleon's disposition than many others, whether 
the report was to be credited, of the Emperor's in- 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 13 

tention to take the crown of Italy upon himself; 
u Yes," said he, " and that without any scruple." 

A short time after his entry into Milan, subse- 
quent to the battle of Lodi, a foreign minister, from 
whom I received the anecdote, suggesting to him, 
the opening which fortune had made for him, and 
that his services might be rewarded with the Duchy 
of Milan, he observed; there was a finer throne than 
that vacant. 

The taste, the appetite, for royalty, has, therefore, 
been innate in Napoleon. With him, to reign is 
every thing, and for this he would sacrifice the world 
without hesitation or remorse. 

It is evident to what extremes such a disposition 
as this would lead a man, from the moment he may 
be possessed of power. This is to him the lever of 
Archimedes, which, wants nothing but a point or 
rest to move the world. Thus tracing the steps of 
Napoleon, we shall find he has never deviated for 
one moment, from this line of ascending progression. 

The general of the thirteenth of Vendemaire, was 
made by Barrere, the general of the army of Italy ; 
the latter, the dictator of this army, became, under 
him, the centre of the French armies, the negociator 
of Leoben, of Campo Formio, ofTolentino; a chief 
in the eyes of the directory, and a source of hope to 
the French people. 

From this time, Egypt became the object suited 
to bis first wish of sovereignty, for his conduct there 
was that of a monarch ; this country he thought 
might serve him, as an asylum, in case of need. 
Hence his project for the overthrow of the Ottoman 
empire, and for establishing himself in Asia Minor; 



14 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

and this was the real object of his expedition to St. 
Jean D'Acre. 

In September, 1804, he observed to me, at Mentz, 
" that there had been nothing to do in Europe, for 
the last two hundred years ;" " the east," said he, 
" is the only theatre for grand undertakings." I 
have heard him repeating this sentiment a hundred 
times, and complaining of the civilization of Europe, 
as an obstacle to his designs. 

A mind viewing politics upon such an extended 
scale, must of necessity expand in proportion, and 
become more or less disgusted with the usual routine 
of affairs, which it would willingly exchange for the 
purpose of soaring in the regions of imagination, 
amongst systems of its own creation. Thus his cres- 
cendo is apparent ; and that he could never rest in 
any one situation which he had attained. This Con- 
sul often years, subjugated, and even nullified his 
colleagues ; with the tribunals also he annihilated 
the constitution, and then made himself Consul for 
life. When he had taken his measures, he elevated 
himself upon the throne he had so long coveted, 
and which he decorated with a more splendid title, 
only with a view of placing himself still higher, and 
being seen at a greater distance. 

Afterwards burtheniny; himself "with a new crown 
in Italy, he aggrandized this kingdom with the spoils 
of the petty states still remaining ; those of Austria 
in the Venetian territory, and those of Naples, which 
he retained as an usufruct for his brother. The ter- 
ritory of Prussia he removed to a distance still 
further, and in the midst of unproductive ruins. 
Upon a new throne, in the heart of Germany, he 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. IS 

raised his brother from America. Under the pretext 
of establishing these new kingdoms, he peopled 
Germany with grand feudatories, to whom he sold 
their new dignities, at the price of every personal 
consideration, both with respect to the blood, the 
wealth, the habits, and even the happiness of their 
subjects. From this period, the tranquillity of the 
north and east of Europe was no more. In con- 
sequence of the most execrable treachery ever known, 
after having invaded Tuscany, he made Portugal 
the scene of misery. Spain, as he told me at Val- 
ladolid, he intended to divide into five large vice- 
royalties, and as a prelude to this, he established 
his intendants in Catalonia and Valencia. Next 
followed the atrocious expulsion of the Pope, and the 
attribution of the nominal sovereignty to the first 
born of his race, as king of Rome ; the scandalous 
expulsion of his own brother from the kingdom of 
Holland, the despoilation of Westphalia, deprived 
of part of its revenues by the invasion of Lower 
Germany and the Iianseatic towns ; and lastly, the 
seizure of these countries, that, without reason or 
ceremony, he chose to annex to the French empire ; 
and which, under no pretence whatever, could be 
supposed to have any connection with France. This 
series of invasions, which necessarily led to others, 
throws the strongest light imaginable upon the asser- 
tion that Napoleon never lost sight of his intention 
to make himself master of the world. He wished 
to treat the world as he had treated France, of which 
he was the tyrant from the very moment he became 
its master; and he could no more brook a contra- 
diction in one place than in another. The man ; who 

7 



16 tfAfcRATiVE OF AN EMBASSY* 

in the most serious debates with the greatest powers 
in Europe, could treat their ambassadors as he 
treated his own chamberlains or the members of his 
own legislative body, could not possibly exist with 
any like a rival or an equal about him. The world 
could not support two masters, and Napoleon, like 
Alexander the Great, could not submit to be second 
in command. Napoleon betrayed himself by the 
exclamation he made use of relative to his ambi- 
tious designs. In this he exposed his most secret 
intentions; those intentions which he had endea- 
voured to conceal under so many perfidious pre- 
tences. When to deceive the more effectually, he 
descended so far as to assume the tone of good na- 
ture ; or when he said, " One man less, and I should 
have been master of the world," is it possible to 
misapprehend his object? I was present at the audi- 
ence a few days before his* departure for Russia, 
and when the bishops from Savona were also present, 
he made use of these words, " After I have termi- 
nated the business in hand, and two or three other 
projects which I have in my head, (rubbing his 
forehead) there shall be twenty popes in Europe, 
and every one shall have his share." The conver- 
sation had been upon the Pope's affairs, and this 
threw some light upon his intended removal of the 
pontiff to Fontainbleau. 

Some days after my return from Savona, in No- 
vember 1811, the Emperor detained me after his 
levee, as he had frequently done for a year past 
At the conclusion of a long conversation, in which 
he had been pleasing himself with the details of his 
journey to Holland, he said to me^ in a transport 



TO WARSAW AND WIINA. 17 

of ambitious intoxication, " In five years I shall be 
master of the world, Russia alone remains ; but I 
shall crush Russia." (He frequently used a gesture 
correspondent with this threat,) then renewing the 
conversation, he several times said, " Paris shall 
come to St. Cloud. I will build fifteen ships of 
the line every year ; and I will not put to sea till 
I have a hundred and fifty : I shall then also be 
master of the seas, and all commerce must of 
course pass through my hands. I will not import 
a pound more than I export. I will exchange 
million for million." This, his curious idea of com- 
merce, I had developed from the period of his journey 
to Spain. He frequently returned to the idea that he 
should be master of the world, and that Paris should 
extend to St. Cloud. I cannot resist the pleasure 
of publishing the remains of this curious conversa- 
tion, though rather foreign to the subject of this 
narrative. 

The emperor, on his return from Holland, was 
enchanted, but that which tickled him the most, 
was the idea that the Hollanders were fond of his 
regulations : " They know," said he, and I heard 
him repeat it at least ten times ; " they know that 
I did not furnish my chateau at Fontainbleau all 
at once." What flatterer had furnished him with 
this ridiculous bait for his self-love, I know not; 
but I have learnt from persons whose veracity cannot 
be called in question, that nothing could equal the 
reproaches that his commercial intermeddling had 
produced among the Hollanders, and especially as 
these had been dictated in such a magisterial tone 
by him who was only trying his crude conceptions 

c 



18 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

against the experience of these patriarchs of com* 
merce. It was on one of these occasions, when 
Napoleon said he should have two hundred ships of 
war to oppose the English, one of the auditors re- 
plied " yes, he should have six hundred." This 
answer, however, was repaid with a look of con- 
tempt, but in cases of dissent this is his ordinary 
mode of replying. 

As to Napoleon's innate inclination for thrones 
and dominion, it is not exclusively his own ; it runs 
in the blood of the family. Joseph, Jerome, Louis, 
the grand Duchess, so ingeniously named the 
Semiramis of Lucca, equally partake of the mania 
for sitting upon thrones ; they sigh for sovereignty 
alone, they desire no other honour. There is 
scarcely a member of this strange family who does 
not fancy himself destined to reign and command to 
all eternity, and who looks upon the privation of a 
throne as the violation of all right, human and di- 
vine ; and that their reign is indispensibly necessary 
to the happiness of the people. It is vain that the 
world rejects them with disgust; they still look 
upon themselves as sovereigns legitimate, and neces- 
sarily so by an imperscriptible right. He who is 
able may explain that facility with which Napoleon's 
family have forgotten every past transaction, in 
order that they alone may look forward ; but this 
disposition pervades the whole of them. Joseph 
imagines that all the wealth of France would be 
well employed in re-establishing him upon the 
throne of Spain. The blood of two millions of 
Spaniards, who died to expel him, cries to him in 
vaia ; he is deaf to this as much as to those whom 



TO WARSAW AND WlLNA. 19 

his madness has left to breathe upon this land of 
desolation, who equally reject him. On the other 
hand, France, of which he is ignorant, knows 
nothing of him but by the reports of his luxury, and 
that ruin that he has brought upon every throne 
which he has attempted. In vain would she give 
him to understand that enough of French blood has 
been shed to make him master of a nation whp 
would rather perish than accept him. We know 
the measures which were found necessary to induce 
him to sign his abdication of that ridiculous and 
atrocious royalty of Spain. Louis also, was not 
less spoiled by his short-lived sovereignty in Holland; 
in vain does France, Holland, and Europe at large, 
declare him fallen ; he still looks upon himself as 
king of Holland by the grace of God, and in the 
administration of his household, retains the shadow 
of sovereignty, the most ridiculous in the world. 
Jerome, next to Napoleon, is he in whom the most 
ardent thirst for dominion remains : he really ex- 
pected to have been king of Poland. 

The same inclination prevails in the highest de- 
gree among some of the females of this family. The 
grand Duchess would hold a very distinguished rank 
among those of her sex, marked by the voracity of 
their ambition. She is Agrippina, always ready to 
adopt the motto of her mind, Occidat modo imperet* 
Let us reign if we perish. And in respect to this 
propensity, the queen of Naples does not yield to 
any. 

But in this family the lust of power has not pro* 
duced the effects observable among others who have 
made rapid advances in an elevated career, It hjas 

c % 



20 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

neither called forth great actions nor great virtues ; 
it has not proved a germ from which eminent quali- 
ties have developed themselves, and which generally 
distinguish aspiring minds. No ; individually none 
have been more devoid of bright parts ; none more 
common ; none more terre a terre than these can- 
didates for, and retainers of thrones. The only 
qualification they plead, is their relation to their 
brother. The moment he became a sovereign, they 
thought it necessary they should become sovereigns 
also ; and with claims from this affinity, they never 
ceased to harrass him ; and we know the tart reply 
that Napoleon made to the demand of one of these 
domestic kings, il Will not people say that I have 
prevented you from being the successor of the late 
kingf our father r" 

The high and mighty ambition of the emperor, 
has since absorbed all these subalterns, who were 
formed about him like satellites attending the orb 
of their principal planet. Yet, whilst they admi 
nistered to his ambition, they imagined they could 
make it conducive to their own ; nor were they less 
active in this subordinate state, nor by any means 
less disposed to grasp at every thing within their 
reach. Thus we may see the cost they have already 
1 been to Europe, and which may still be increased. 

The regular plan laid down by the Emperor for 
the successive conquest of different parts of Europe, 
the periods of which we have already noticed, having 
led him to the frontiers of Russia, and brought 
about the interview at Erfurt, the conquest of Fin- 
land, the war of 1813 against Austria, and that 
which was then carrying on against Turkey, were 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 21 

all so many means of involving, deceiving, and 
throwing Russia off her guard till the moment when 
Napoleon was permitted to approach her with secu- 
rity. Never was plan conceived and managed with 
more art and persevering industry, or with a degree 
of perfidy more consummate. 

At length the period arrived when what was 
called the Emperor's system was to be fully extended 
to the point for which it had been so long designed. 
Upon this system I shall make a few remarks. This 
prince had established himself in the centre of Eu- 
rope as in a domain made for his purposes, and in 
which he might freely deliver himself up to his chi- 
merical speculations. Every state overturned, and 
every new invasion made part of this system, and 
was connected with that general wish, which, if not, 
in his plan, was always adopted if it could be made 
subservient to his grand object. But though it could 
not be said that he had any fixed rules, he always, 
availed himself of existing circumstances, and o£ 
any oversight in his enemies, especially of the want 
of firmness in any of the parties with whom he had 
to do ; but he never had, nor ever will have any re- 
gular plan either in war or politics. His mind is at 
enmity with any kind of regularity ; the facility he. 
has every where found, has enabled him to seize 
many advantages, and to arrange them at his leisure. 
All Europe appears to him like an old mansion. in 
ruins, where one repair only introduces another, in 
order to bring the whole into any kind of symmetry. 
This idea naturally leads to the demolition of the 
edifice, and this, according to the Emperor's sys^ 
tern, includes the conquest of Europe as a means 



22 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

of completing the changes projected and half 
achieved. This is what might be heard every mo- 
ment from the mouths of those who were about the 
Emperor: u the Emperor's system, the Emperor's 
plan, the Emperor's views," have resounded in my 
ears for these ten years past This plan or system 
was supposed to embrace various objects; some 
said Constantinople ; some said Poland : others 
trembled at Paris, because Finland had been re- 
united to Russia. Every one spoke and acted with 
the " Emperor's system" in view ; and however they 
differed in other respects, to this system they looked 
as the common centre. 

The Emperor deceived himself; he attempted to 
conceal his views by presenting sometimes one scheme 
of general politics, and sometimes another; but he 
had but one, and that was to become master of Eu- 
rope. The Moniteurs, those living archives of his 
designs, had long panegyrized the idea of having 
only two great powers in Europe, France and Rus- 
sia, as worthy of the most profound genius. Other 
powers of inferior consequence were to have been so 
managed between them as to deaden the blows which 
the great ones might receive from any casual ap- 
proximation. 

Such a war against Russia as would drive her 
back to Asia, was afterwards a common expression ; 
this was continually sprouting in Napoleon's ideas, 
and only waiting the period when it might be culti- 
vated with effect. Russia was then to be treated in 
the manner intended for England for more than 
twenty years past. An axiom laid down by the 
French diplomatic body was the echo of the cabinet 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 2$ 

of St. Cloud; this was, that England, as an insular 
power, ought to be excluded from any interference 
in the affairs of the Continent. These great politi- 
cians seem to have derived their doctrine, applied to 
the nineteenth century, from Virgil. They supposed 
that because this poet had said, 

Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, 

that the English of our days should hold themselves 
as really and lawfully excluded from the Continent ; 
the Moniteur has cited this opinion a thousand times. 

This doctrine was reversible in Russia ; but these 
grave logicians concluded, that because Russia was 
situated far in the northern latitudes ; and because it 
was not advanced so far in civilization, nor so rich 
as France in academies of every kind, and on ac- 
count of the advantage of being neighbours to the 
Chinese and the Tartars, she ought to confine herself 
to this vicinity, though they would willingly permit 
her to interfere with the Turks and Persians, whom 
France abandoned as it suited its interests. This 
doctrine was heard at every levee in Paris, those in- 
fallible indicators of the projects prepared at the 
Thuilleries; and this was the part which the diplo- 
matic wiseacres of Pans assigned to Russia. It was 
neither necessary to have lived there many days, nor 
to have much conversation with any intelligent per- 
sons to remove any doubt on this head. 

Already, in the winter of 1813, great movements, 
were observed among the troops in Germany, evi- 
dently directed against Russia. At the opening of 
the legislative body in the same year, Napoleon ac-» 
knowledged that the preparations for the war w|tb 



24 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

Russia had added one hundred millions of livres to 
the expenees of the war department. In the same 
sitting he announced that the war in Spain would 
terminate in a clap of thunder; and that a priest,, 
meaning the Pope, should no longer exercise the 
power of a sovereign; though hut a few years be- 
fore, he himself had created the primacy of Ratis- 
bon. He thought, no doubt, that this clap of thun- 
der was to come from him, but little did he foresee, 
that the sovereign pontiff would resume his throne 
in his son's nominal kingdom. 

The continual occupation of the Prussian for- 
tresses, the accumulation of military provisions in 
Dantzic, the assemblage of French troops between, 
the Oder and the Vistula, were the preparatory 
means of the war he had in view ; and the redoubled 
severity of his custom-house officers in devising fresh 
measures not to leave Russia any means of relief 
from a necessity of trade increasing every day were 
not without serious consequences. Napoleon, after 
invading Pomerania, occupied Mecklenburg, and 
under the idea of protection against the English (the 
common pretext) lined the shores of the Baltic with 
his troops. Napoleon then passed the Rhine, the 
Ems, the Weser, the Elbe, the Trave, and fixing 
himself at Lubec, made no secret of his intention to 
establish a grand maritime arsenal there; that this 
was intended to overawe the three crowns of the 
north, and the whole of the gulph of Finland is as 
dear as the day. 

Is there then a child whom any one would attempt 
to persuade, that the Emperor Alexander (who is 
mildness and candour itself) began the war : that he 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 25 

attacked Napoleon, who is violence and perfidy per- 
sonified ? That Russia, always unsuccessful in war 
against France, who had every thing to hazard and 
nothing to gain, would wantonly attack such a Co- 
lossus as France then was? Who could suppose 
that the excellent Prince Kourakin played the part 
of a political tartuffe with the Duke of Bassano; 
and that it was he, who for the first and last part of 
his life, like the satyr, blew hot and cold out of the 
same mouth? 

Hence it was, that the numbers of the Moniteur 
which contained the forms of the negociation were 
received with laughter and contempt. On the part 
of Russia it was evident there was good faith scru- 
pulously attached to the maintenance of an alliance, 
though manifestly unequal : on the other, a laboured 
research after the means of bringing on a rupture ; 
at the same time, artfully concealing the tendency 
towards this result. 

When Russia confined herself to a demand of 
the evacuation of Prussia as the means of establish^ 
ing a barrier between the two empires, could any 
one censure a proposal so moderate as bearing any 
semblance with aggression? Napoleon, with the 
cunning generally used in his publications, certainly 
did object to this demand, and by a perversion of 
the sense, used it to excite the indignation of his 
army; but there is no man of common sense who 
may not recollect, that from the beginning of the 
Revolution all his chiefs, as well as Napoleon him- 
self, have never suffered any opportunity to escape 
them when it furnished them with the means of at- 



26 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

tributing their own crimes to those persons whom 
they made their victims. 

It was from this principle that in the early stages 
of the Revolution they said it was the Aristocrats, 
who burnt their chateaux merely for the pleasure of 
calumniating the Revolution, and that the Arch- 
bishop of Paris indemnified the owners : thus all 
the Revolutionists have possessed much the same 
genius, morals, and talents. Of late also, these 
people have cried out against violating the indepen- 
dence of France on the part of those who would not 
support Bonaparte, because they well knew that 
France would not long respect the rights and inde- 
pendence of other nations, but rather lend itself for 
the violation of that contract by which Bonaparte 
had engaged to reign over France no longer. Thus, 
in the inversion of the true sense of every engage- 
ment, a great nation has been plunged into a deli- 
rium, and into ruin, as the necessary consequence. 

It must be confessed, that since the peace of Til- 
sit, so pregnant with the seeds of future war almost 
every thinking man has seen the cloud increase from 
which the storm was at length to burst. They have 
even marked the progress of its maturity, and pointed 
out the epoch when peace could no longer exist. It 
was demonstrable to them, that the commerce 
of England would be the subject of the next dispute. 
Napoleon they knew would push his anti-continental 
system in the Baltic to the utmost, and that Russia 
would have no choice, but either to resist at all ha- 
zards, or receive French garrisons from Riga to 
Archangel. These were no secrets at Paris. The 
general conversation respecting Poland at this time 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 27 

was calculated to convince any person how far the 
war was or was not inevitable on the part of France. 
The duchy of Warsaw was the only obstacle : In 
Europe the whole of the comedy turned upon this 
secret. I was informed of this by the Emperor him- 
self at Dresden ; in fact he might have spared this 
information ; as I had not been under the necessity 
of waiting for it till then. Out of two hundred and 
four dispatches sent to me from M . Bignon, at War- 
saw, which formed the whole of his correspondence, 
more than one hundred of these exhibit his real 
views relative to Poland. Long before this period, 
at Bayonne, in April, 1808, I heard the Emperor 
complain of the three Polish senators from Warsaw, 
for being guilty of precipitation, and exposing them- 
selves too much to Russia, and he advised them to 
check their impatience. No vast penetration is ne- 
cessary to discover his meaning on this account. For 
a long time past the Poles have repeatedly told me, 
that they had the Emperor's word for their emanci- 
pation. 

I shall cite one more instance in support of the 
publicity of the hostility of Napoleon, in respect to 
Russia. 

On the 20th of August, 181 1, returning from the 
levee at St. Cloud, where I had been to take leave 
of him, at the moment of my departure for Savona, 
a young officer who had a place in the new court, 
requested me to return with him to Paris. I had for 
several years past been in the habit of talking with 
him upon the affairs of France, and at the court of 
Napoleon ; ah, said he, war with Russia on the first 
$f September ! I marked this trait ; but in endea- 



NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

vouring to temper his zeal, I demonstrated to him, 
without much difficulty, that this enter prize could 
not be brought to maturity before the first of May. 
At the same time I could not help admiring the pre- 
sumptuous folly of a young man, who in conse- 
quence of his opportunity of knowing some things, 
should undertake to announce a war with Russia, and 
suppose its commencement at the very period when 
it ought to conclude ! However, this was one of the 
young sages, who, from the nature of his office, was 
called upon to take a part in the government of the 
State. 

During the winter of 1811-12, Paris resounded 
with reports, menaces, and preparations for war 
against Russia. Paris was a place of arms, and a 
passage for troops collecting from all parts for the 
expedition. The Poles were sent for from Spain ; 
the imperial guard had left Paris ; the contingents 
of the confederation of the Rhine were all in motion, 
and only waiting for the rising of the sun upon a 
more elevated horizon as the signal for battle. Here 
a few observations may be permitted ; and first the 
.similarity of Napoleon's conduct towards the Empe- 
ror Alexander, and the unfortunate Prince ofxlsturias. 
To take by surprize was his object in both cases. 
Previously to Napoleon's expedition to Spain, he 
circulated a hundred different reports, as to its des- 
tination, the siege of Gibraltar, the occupation of a 
part of the coast of Africa, to intercept the passage 
of the Mediterranean, Sec. The unfortunate court of 
Spain never knew its fate, till it was too late to arrest 
the rapid course of the invader. The first intimation 
of Napoleon's intentions they learned from Esqukrdo^ 
an agent attached to the Prince of Peace* 



TO WARSAW AND WlLtf A. 29 

In order to deceive Russia, respecting the desti- 
nation of the French armies during the whole winter, 
the most ridiculous stories were fabricated about 
founding new colonies, heaven only knew where ; 
and accordingly the collection of a great number of 
artists, gardeners, mechanics, &c. were talked of to 
join the expedition; as was also the removal of a 
great quantity of costly vestments from the imperial 
wardrobe. All these reports were merely made to 
mislead the public as to the real object. To this 
also the protestations, the caresses, and the 
official lies at Paris and Petersburg, are to be im- 
puted. It was only at the moment of action that the 
Duke of Bassano left Paris, without notice, leaving 
Prince Kourakin to his conjectures, whilst waiting 
for the promised rendezvous, and his passports, 
which were withheld as long as possible. Things 
were carried thus far, merely to lull all kind of ap- 
prehension ; with this view also the Count de Nar- 
bonne was sent to Wilna, and General Lauriston was 
placed about the person of the Emperor Alexander, 
but he had too much judgment to beimposed upon. 

As in Spain, so in Russia, Napoleon had a double 
part to play. In Russia he wished to take the army 
by surprize, and crush- it at one blow r : he also flat- 
tered himself with the hopes of seizing the person of 
Alexander. His taste for. finishing his disputes 
with kings in this manner, originated in Spain ; 
though the pMce he had paid for making this expe- 
riment had by no means, cured him of this vice, he 
rather flattered himself with the notion, that in Russia 
he should* be able to indemnify himself for the losses 
he had sustained by the Spaniards* This he told 



50 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

me in his conference at Dresden, as will presently 
appear. 

The Emperor had laboured so much to conceal 
his real intentions, as to have preparations made for 
his actual reception at Warsaw ; but that his real 
destination would only be known at Posen, was held 
as no secret by the Duke of Bassano, when at break- 
fast at the house of Count de Senft, on the morning 
of my departure from Dresden. To a person pre- 
sent, who asked him if it was true that the Emperor 
was going to Warsaw, he observed, "There is much 
talk of it," this was a kind of watch-word to the 
French, and those of his party. 

To do away every idea of aggression against Rus- 
sia, was a principal part of Napoleon's chimerical 
plan to which he was so fondly attached. Can it be 
credited, that even within three or four days of his 
departure, and when he had 400,000 men already 
in Poland, and after his household had been gone 
some time, and when the business of several of the 
electoral colleges had been postponed on account of 
his approaching departure, that he could throw him- 
self into one of his ordinary fits of passion, and gave 
full vent to his usual terms of reproach. " What," 
said he, to a foreigner of distinction, who offered to 
congratulate him, " who dare say that I am going 
away? What do they know of my designs ? I am not 
going. Surely I may order my people and my horses 
about me when I please." He left his council and 
his ministers, only saying, " I am going to review 
my troops." The Moniteur y which any one may 
consult, assigned no other motive than this for the 
Emperor's departure. These precautions, strained 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 31 

to an excess, prove to a demonstration, that the 
origin of this war, the time and mode of its com- 
mencement belong exclusively to Napoleon. 

Another observation is grounded upon the self- 
complacency which the Emperor enjoyed in deceiv- 
ing Paris, relative to his future intentions, and the 
pleasure he took in mystifying his good citizens. I 
hope I shall be excused the use of this expression ; 
the Emperor always dreaded Paris. The saloons 
of that city afforded him no pleasure ; he was con- 
scious he never reigned there. 

Et que, de quelque nom qu'un esclave le nomme, 
Le Fils de Jupiter passe la pour un homme. 

This man, who received his education at a mili- 
tary coffee-house, and retained its manners and its 
language, must of course be an enemy to all kind of 
urbanity, and even the shadow of that liberty which 
is always observed in good company ; and without 
which society cannot subsist. Napoleon has often 
read his condemnation in the faces of many of his sub- 
jects : long has he wished, though in vain, to shake 
off the yoke of public opinion: but not succeeding, 
he has been, and must still be, content to bear it, 
in spite of his reluctance. It has been his greatest 
pleasure to hold up the Parisians to ridicule : when 
speaking of them, he always uses the terms des 
badauds, des caquets de la grand ville. The lowest, 
the most insulting terms are continually in his mouth 
when speaking of Paris, and there can be little doubt 
that with respect to the tongues of Paris, he has 
entertained the same wishes as those bf Caligula, 
relative to the heads of the people of Rome, 



32 NARRATIVE OP AN EMBASSV 

It was thus that he avenged himself of that hatred 
that he knew inspired all hearts, yet he was highly 
pleased in making these badauds, as he called them, 
the instruments of circulating such reports as suited 
his purposes, though ever so absurd, particularly as 
to his pretended auxiliaries. 

The mystification to which he was so much at- 
tached, may afford some idea of his taste, and the 
sentiments he entertained of his own personal dignity, 
as well as the duties he owed to his people. He 
was the first sovereign who dared at the same time 
to outrage a nation, and treat them with contempt. 
I shall only add three more remarks ; first,. the man 
who created a rank, a state and a manner equally 
new to France and all Europe, out of all acknow- 
ledged rank, either royal or imperial ; who has con- 
verted three or four kings into assistants about his 
throne, and assumed the right of ordering his feuda- 
tory monarchs to swell the pomp of his retinue ; the 
man who caused the train of his new spouse to be 
borne by five or six queens ; and who has ten times 
at least written in the Moniteur, that such a family 
has, or shall cease to reign ; who never signed a 
peace but in his enemy's capital ; who never waited 
for a declaration of war, but prepared and com- 
menced hostilities to suit his own convenience, must 
be equally regardless either of honour or precedents. 

It is evident, that the common course of life was 
absolutely intolerable to Napoleon; he could exist 
only in storms. Men in general are satisfied with 
their habitual modes of existence, content with wit- 
nessing a few extraordinarv events as the common 
lot of humanity ; but with Napoleon, agitation in. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 33 

trig extreme was the basis of his being; he was 
nursed in the lap of storms and commotions, as 
others are in the bosom of peace. In the midst of 
these he flourished and prospered, ifi proportion as 
others would have languished and died. We may surely 
be permitted to utter complaints to heaven for suf- 
fering a mortal, with such an antipathy to the repose 
of all others, as that of Napoleon, to exist so long: 
but so it has been, and as long as he may still sur- 
vive, all his exertions, both physical and moral, will 
tend to the disturbance of others, and to his own 
torment. " You men of wit," said he, " are all 
fools ; you women are all — *-:" " lam weary of 
inaction, I must have war," and he immediately set 
out for Prussia. This was said at court in 1806. 
These things speak volumes, and are sufficient fo 
satisfy the world as to the cause of this man's rest- 
lessness* 

Napoleon ascended his throne in a manner very 
different from other sovereigns ; he appeared here 
like an actor upon a theatre. " I speak as an oracle; 
I perform prodigies ; the wonders of this day shall 
be exceeded by those of to-morrow." Such was the 
inflated language held by him upon his first entrance 
upon the stage of royalty. Not satisfied with com- 
manding, he wished to be admired ; he wished to be 
first, and unique in his kind, and that his honours 
should increase with his power. He wished for the 
eyes of the universe to be continually fixed upon him; 
he alone wished to occupy the hundred tongued 
trumpet of fame; and only regretted his inability to 
add to their number. This has been the object of all 
his actions from the commencement of his reign. 

D 



54* NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

Many of his journies have been merely contrived for 
the purpose of drawing the attention of the public. 
The deputations sent him from all parts of France 
and Europe on the^e occasions, were so many clouds 
of incense. This scene was never suffered to lan- 
guish, and when diversification became necessary, it 
was often enlivened by some of those great calami- 
ties which men, by a contradiction in their nature 
and their interests, have agreed to celebrate, as the 
most worthy of their admiration, and to exalt the 
principal performers as men who have a right to their 
most profound respect. War alone is the only ob- 
ject that Napoleon loved and honoured, the only 
tiling that he prosecuted with pleasure ; and to the 
world's great misfortune the only one in which he 
escaped ennui. 

In fine, can it possibly be supposed, that with a 
disposition which has been placed beyond the possi- 
bility of doubt, that Napoleon, whose haughty and 
malignant mind was invested with a power almost 
unlimited, did not compel Russia to take a part in 
the grand drama exhibited on the theatre of Europe, 
during fifteen years? Or that he did not mean to 
extend it all over the world ? 

Let us then conclude as certain, from the facts 
brought forward, and the Emperor's known system, 
that Bonaparte was undoubtedly the author of the 
war with Russia, as a part of his plan for the subju- 
gation of Europe ; in which an attack upon this 
empire was indispensibly necessary. If any scruples 
remain on this head, it cannot be for want of evi- 
dence, but merely from bestowing too much investi- 
gation upon a question sufficiently clear. 



10 WARSAW AND WILNA. 35 

The Emperor quitted Paris the 9th of May. I 
followed him on the 10th with a part of the court. 
Upon reaching Metz the next day, the 11th, M. de 
Vaublanc paid us a visit, and informed us, that the 
Emperor had passed the evening with great gaiety, 
and that he had boasted that he was going to put all 
Poland on horseback. The Prefect expressing 
some astonishment, he added, <c Yes, sixteen mil- 
lions of Poles. I will produce them all in the 
field." He then gave full vent to his usual rhodo- 
mantades, and ran on about the success he had al- 
ready experienced, and that which he still expected, 
with a degree of frenzy. 

I reached Dresden the 17th of May, after one of 
those painful journies to which all the court of 
Napoleon were subject. Men, women, and chil- 
dren, of all ranks, were expected to travel like 
government couriers. 

The Emperor took the route of Franconia to avoid 
Weimar, the residence of the sister of Alexander. 
Belays were provided across the mountains, at the 
expence of the Saxon government. 

If you wish to form a just notion of the dominion 
which this man exercised in Europe, transport your- 
self in imagination to Dresden, and contemplate this 
proud Prince at this zenith of his glory, a zenith so 
near to the lowest point of degradation. The Em- 
peror occupied the principal apartments of the cas- 
tle. He had brought with him a numerous house- 
hold. He kept his table there, and after the first 
Sunday, upon which the King of Saxony held a court 
gala, it was at the table of Napoleon that the sove- 
reign princes assembled and lived. The grand mar- 

v % 



S6 NARRATIVE 0$ AN EMBASSY 

shal sent the invitations. Some private individuals 
were occasionally invited ; myself, as an ambassa- 
dor, had this honour. 

The levees of the Emperor were held as usual. 
They were attended by these sovereign princes. It 
was really afflicting to see the humiliation of so many 
illustrious and independent German princes, all 
submitting themselves in the most lowly manner, and 
anxiously awaiting their fate, their reward, or their 
punishment, from this arbiter of nations. It was 
really distressing to hear the frivolous questions 
which Napoleon addressed to them, and their hum- 
ble responses. Worthy a place in the annals of 
pride. 

The Prince of Neufchatel (Berthier), had pro- 
posed to Count Mette nich, the exchange of Gallicia 
for Ulyria. Berthier now informed Napoleon, that 
the Count had declined to enter on the subject. 
" What," exclaimed Napoleon, " does he hesitate 
where he knows my wish. A pleasant fellow this. 
Gentlemen, mark the weakness of the human mind ; 
for it is the greatest of weaknesses to indulge the 
hope of being able to contend with me? 

Nothing ever struck me as equal to these expres- 
sions ; they can never be erased from my remem- 
brance. In comparison with a man> inflated with 
such a portion of self-love as this, Nebuchadnezzar, 
the proud, must be viewed as a perfect pattern of 

humilitv. 

■i 

At my arrival at Dresden, the Emperor informed 
himself with much apparent interest, with respect to 
my health, and enquired of me how I had borne the 
journey. To my answer that I was never in better 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 37 

health, " See," said he, " what falsehoods obtain 
currency ; they had told the Empress that you were 
in extreme danger." 

I was for some time ignorant to what cause to 
impute these tender enquiries, so little usual with 
Napoleon. I had, indeed, some suspicion, that I 
was to be the instrument of some of his views upon 
the Polish clergy. 

A few days, however, fully explained it. On 
Sunday, the 24th or 25th of May, he summoned me 
into his presence after mass, and after having again 
made mention of my health, began to open his de- 
signs. But he still only spoke in abrupt hints, and 
it was only from the Duke of Bassano, that I learned 
the detail and purpose of my mission. Napoleon 
spoke only of sending me into Poland. " I will try 
your talents. You will reasonably suppose that I 
want you for some other purpose than saying mass. 
You must keep a good table, and have a suitable 
retinue. They are of weight in that country. You 
ought to know something of Poland. You have 
read Rhulieres. I shall beat the Russians. The 
candle is burning. By the end of September every 
thing must be finished. I am losing time here, I 
am acting the gallant, — like the Count Narbonne, 
with the Empress of Austria." I know not what 
particular pique he had taken against this Empress, 
but he now indulged himself in abusive terms, which 
I will not repeat. I reminded him that some of the 
partitioning powers of Poland had become his al- 
lies, and suggested the difficulty of reconciling their 
interests with his present views. , He replied 
vaguely, but led me to infer, that after having 



3$ NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

finished with Russia, he would assume the master 
towards Austria, and compel her to accept Illyria in 
exchange. He positively said, he did not know who 
he should bestow the kingdom of Poland upon, after 
its integrity was restored. As to Prussia and Sile- 
sia, their fate was decided. He spoke of the latter 
only with the most profound contempt. 

He informed me of tU? arrival of the Pope at 
Fontainbleau. He added, " I am going to Mos- 
cow ; one or two battles will settle the business. 
The Emperor Alexander will be brought to his 
knees : I will burn Thaula ; behold Russia disarmed. 
They expect me at Moscow ; it is the heart of the 
empire. I will carry on the war with Polish blood. 
I will leave 50,000 French in Poland ; I will make 
Dantzic a second Gibraltar of the North ; I will 
subsidize Poland with fifty millions a year ; I am 
rich enough for that. The continental system is a 
folly without Russia. I should have been master of 
Europe, but for this Spanish war. My son, without 
any great talents, would then only have to keep what 
I had acquired. Go to Maret, he will inform you of 
the particulars of your mission." 

This was his conversation, word for word, only 
important as far as it throws light upon his views. 
He softened much of it by some approbation of my 
conduct. These are eulogiums, which he very well 
knows how to apply, when his interests require it ; 
but when his anger predominates, every one is with 
him a fool or a driveller. 

He had no manner of doubt of complete success. 
This confidence he imparted to every one, strangers 
pr natives, without distinction. All the French youth 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 39 

of Paris, looked upon the expedition, as a grand 
hunting party, which would not occupy more than 
six months. The army too, thirsting after preferment 
and plunder, lent themselves to these measures, with- 
out restraint. Happy were those who were chosen 
to partake in this enterprize ; those who were refused, 
either blamed their unlucky stars, or censured the 
Emperor's judgment. I, however, anticipated some 
fatal events. 

If a thunderbolt had fallen at my feet, it could not 
have excited more horror and astonishment than I 
felt when I first heard of my nomination as ambassa- 
dor. I always had an aversion to the Polish expe- 
dition. I had employed much of my time, during 
the winter, in endeavouring to persuade the Duke 
of Rovigo, minister of the police, and who was in 
the habit of conversing with me, that though this 
attack should be made, as a coup de main upon Mos- 
cow, or by regular campaign in Poland, or in con- 
fining our operations to the shores of the Dwina, or 
the Borysthenes, still the most serious obstacles 
would present themselves. 

From some unaccountable presentiment, I could 
not help regretting the fate of the unfortunate sol- 
diers, whom I observed traversing Paris, on their 
way to the deserts that were to devour them. When 
I was invested with the office of grand almoner, by 
Cardinal Fesch, I also solicited him to divert tho 
Emperer from his purpose. I made similar attempts 
upon the minister of public worship, to induce him 
to make representations to the Emperor, on account 
of the state of my health, and the inconveniences I 
should be exposed to in the midst of military move* 



40 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

ments. This gentleman, with that urbanity and be- 
nevolence, which has actuated him in every relation 
with the members of his administration, endeavoured 
to allay my apprehensions ; still I could not avoid 
feeling them in all their force, when I could no 
longer evade the honour intended me. The people 
of Dresden thought me extremely fortunate, when I 
was really in the deepest despair. My concern, 
however, was in some degree lessened, by the obser- 
vations I made upon the mistaken judgment of men, 
who were congratulating me, probably with a mix- 
ture of envy, under the idea that I had at length 
arrived at a point of distinction, for which I had long 
sighed, whilst in fact, I was even a stranger to 
repose. 

Some persons may possibly conceive this narra- 
tive has been written upon slight grounds. If they 
had heard the conversation of those who were at- 
tached to the embassy, or seen the memorial which 
I transmitted to the Duke of Bassano, when I so- 
licited my recall, they would adopt very different 
sentiments. 

Behold me, then, an ambassador, in spite of all 
my endeavours, and having for the maintenance of 
this high office, a footman, and twenty-five louis ; 
this too was the result of the confidence with which 
I had been distinguished. Marshal Duroc lent me 
6000 francs to defray the expences of my new office. 

When according to the Emperor's order, I waited 
on M. Maret, I could only get a sight of him in the 
corridor of the chateau, there he notified to me my 
appointment, with a certain salary of 150,000 francs 
per annum. He desired me to attend him next day ? 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 41 

but then as well as for several days following, all 
my attempts to obtain an audience were fruitless. 

This minister was incessantly going backwards and 
forwards from his house to the chateau, where he 
was besieged by those of the great and inferior 
powers. He had no idea of brevity in business. 
He remained three or four hours with each minister. 
His apartments were filled with poor dependants like 
myself, waiting for their deliverance, and the open- 
ing of the doors, that was once more to conduct 
them to the light which I was deprived of, at least 
four days, at the expiration of which I was fortu- 
nate enough to get a sight of this busy minister, 
buried in a heap of papers, without order or classi- 
fication. My entrance into diplomacy, was by no 
means strewed with flowers. The duke in this in- 
terview seemed very eager to get rid of me ; he how- 
ever gave me my instructions ; but lie only spoke 
decidedly of the Poles, the mixed subjects of the 
Duchy of Warsaw, belonging to Austria and Prus- 
sia ; he desired me to treat them purely as Poles, 
and made no exception, but in favour of those who 
had no connection with the Duchy of Warsaw. He 
gave me to understand that at present it was neces- 
sary to temporize with Austria and Prussia; but 
as this necessity would not be of long duration, other 
arrangements would then take place. 

The Emperor was already upon his journey. 
They required me to follow him. They sent me an 
account of the actual force of the Russian army, 
drawn up from the materials of M. Eignon and other 
agents, between Petersburgh and Constantinople. 
■fins hurry of the Duke of Bassano must be imputed 



42 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

to several causes ; first, to the immensity of the 
affairs in which he was actually engaged ; secondly, 
to the perpetual summonses for his personal attend- 
ance upon the Emperor ; and, thirdly, to the kind 
of life which his excellency lived. He turned day 
into night, and night into day ; he went to rest late ; 
and was equally late before he rose ; he remained an 
endless time at his dinner and supper, and lost much 
valuable time in gossiping with women. It was 
truly annoying to see him neglect the most important 
concerns to lose his time with some of these ladies ; 
every one had to wait whilst he bandied backwards 
and forwards the pleasantries of these females. I 
have never seen in this respect a more frivolous man. 

I shall not take my leave of Dresden, without 
mentioning some of the observations which there 
suggested themselves. 

To the Emperor's residence at Dresden, we may 
apply what was said by Phedrus, of Hippolytus ; 

" Meme au pieds des autels que je faisais fumer, 
J' ofFrais tout a ce Dieu/' 

Napoleon was the god of their idolatry. The only 
king that was present ; or rather the king of kings. 
It was upon him only that all eyes were turned ; and 
the royal house of Saxony were only his guests in 
their own capital. The throng of travellers of all 
kinds, — officers, courtiers, and couriers, — the crowd 
of the city, — the eagerness of the most distinguished 
nobility to view this idol of their admiration, was 
astonishing. All these circumstances composed a 
spectacle, which carried his greatness to the highest 
point. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 43 

The King of Prussia arrived at Dresden. Every 
one was anxious to see an interview between two 
sovereigns situated as Napoleon and this king. It 
is said that the King of Prussia returned from the 
palace with an air of pleasure ; and every one, French 
as well as German, were happy to believe it. The 
Empress of Austria, however, was the most attractive 
spectacle. Never shall I forget the impression 
which she made, when she appeared to us coming 
through a long avenue of apartments, preceded by 
the Emperor Francis, and followed by the count. 
So much beauty, so much grace, and so much true 
majesty ! Her Hungarian dress still improved her 
beauty, and gave her that en bon point, which was 
all she wanted. Every one murmured their appro- 
bation as she passed; every one owned that she was. 
truly an Empress. This charm of her appearance 
was further augmented by that of her conversation ; 
her wit was not inferior to her beauty, and her be- 
nevolence was worthy of both. 

The Count of Narbonne, aide-de-camp to the 
Emperor, arrived at Wilna before I left it. He had 
been at Berlin, to allay the apprehensions of the 
Prussian cabinet. I knew enough of him to enquire 
the particulars of the embassy from which he re- 
turned. He appalled me, by informing us that the 
Emperor Alexander was in the best attitude of de- 
fence, that he was not abashed nor elated, but sober 
and determined ; that he had expressed his regrets 
for the rupture with the Emperor Napoleon, but had 
excused himself from being the cause of the war. 
That he had said, he was not ignorant either of the 
power X)r talents of the Emperor Napoleon, but that 



44 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

if we would take the map of Russia in our hands, we 
should see that he did not want space ; and that he 
would retreat to the very bottom of Siberia, before 
he would sign a treaty of peace disgraceful to Russia. 

I inferred from this answer, that our affairs were 
in a bad condition, and in the magnanimity of Alex- 
ander's sentiments, I seemed to recognize all the 
boding presentiments I had expressed to the minister 
of police, last winter. 

I met a friend at Dresden, to whom I was much 
attached, the Count de Senft. This nobleman was 
greatly esteemed, both in France and in all foreign 
kingdoms, where his worth, wealth, and talents, were 
known. In one of our conversations at Dresden, 
" There are only three persons in all Saxony/' said 
he, " who have any regard for the French, — myself, 
my wife, and the king. It is the same in Russia, 
and in all Germany." 

I now commenced my journey. I will not en- 
deavour to paint my feelings, when after having tra- 
versed the Elbe, I began to ascend the mountains, 
on the opposite side of the river, and came in view 
of those black forests, which extend from Dresden 
into the extreme North. Each tree appeared to me 
a cypress. It appeared to me that I had entered a 
new world. The scene was immense, and ] remem- 
bered what was the object of my mission. 

It seemed to be as if Europe ended with the pas- 
sage of the Oder. Here began a new language, and 
new manners and habits. The great number of Jews, 
who wear an Asiatic costume, imprinted upon the 
country an air decidedly oriental. Poland is not 
indeed Asia ; but still less is it Europe. Its sun has 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 45 

not the fervor of the torrid climes. Its agriculture 
is in its infancy. It was now the month of June; 
the season was delightful; the face of the soil a 
parched desart. The animals were all dwarf, and 
stunted ; the people themselves of a good shape and 
size, but characterised by extreme poverty ; wooden 
towns ; houses filled with filth, and vermin, and the 
most revolting food. In a word, the nation seemed 
only in the first stage from the most savage barba- 
rism. I reposed some hours at Wolburch, the 
country house of the Bishop of Cujavia, at the en- 
trance of the town of Petiskaw. I found his secre- 
tary, one of the canons of the chapter, with his 
dress much torn, and in wales from blows given to 
him by General Vandamme, personally, because he 
refused to give the general some tokay. The bishop 
was highly indignant at this insult to his officer, 
who assured the haughty general, he really had no 
wine, because the King of Westphalia, who had 
lodged there the preceding evening, had loaded all 
his carriages with it when he went away. 

Here the complaints against the depredations of 
the army and its agents became general and inces- 
sant. I remember meeting a Jew, coming from 
Warsaw, when asking him, What news ? he very 
archly exclaimed in French, " News ! why there is 
nothing to eat!" The bishop had to learn the cha- 
racter of General Vandamme, whose army was com- 
posed entirely of Germans, forming the Westphalian 
and Saxon corps. There were no French before the 
arrival of General Durutte, from Berlin, with his 
division, about 14,000 strong. We ought to do this 
corps the justice of acknowledging that it was a model 



46 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASST 

of regularity arid discipline, and that no complaints 
were made against it. 

I arrived at Warsaw on the morning of the 9th ; 
an aide-de-camp of General Bigamki, the command- 
ant, conducted me to my lodgings. Their condition 
would be a lesson to the ambitious. Never was any 
thing more horrible. For fifteen days the imperial 
ambassador of France was compelled to sleep on the 
floor, because there was no bed, and devoured by 
insects, and all kinds of vermin. My secretary and 
myself could with difficulty find a chair each. ' The 
King of Saxony had assigned me the hotel of Count 
Bruhl. But Jerome, King of Westphalia, had now 
occupied it The Count Potocki then offered me 
the lower part of his hotel, which I gladly accepted* 
Now commenced all the labours of my commission, 
I had a perpetual levee from ten to three. I had to 
see every one and to answer every one. In a word, 
from the 20th of June to the 27th of December, the 
day of my arrival and of my departure, nothing could 
be more onerous than the burthen imposed upon me. 
I had to convoke the Diets ; to draw up the procla- 
mations ; to prepare the business ; to preside at 
council ; and above all, to send a daily report to the 
cabinet of the Emperor Napoleon. 

The weight of these difficulties was much increased 
by the King of Westphalia, the depredations of tho 
army, and the poverty of Warsaw. 

The King of Westphalia had come to Warsaw, to 
take the command of the army composed of Saxons, 
Westphalians, and Poles. This army formed the 
right of the grand army, General Vandamme com- 
manded the Saxons, 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 47 

The King of Westphalia (Jerome Buonaparte), 
found the time irksome, and therefore hourly sent 
for me. He resembled his brother more in his ha- 
bits than in his talents. The same quickness of 
speech, — abruptness; the same adventuring spirit; 
the same contempt of morality ; the same military 
brigandism. He aspired to the throne of Poland 
and ridiculed the similar hopes of the King of Sax- 
ony. He was moreover a great speaker, and spoke 
with a volubility little consistent with his dignity* 
His thoughts, however, were better than his words. 
But he exaggerated or diminished every thing ac- 
cording to his hopes and wishes, like his brother he 
walked without ceasing up and down the room ; 
talked in exclamations, and expected every one to 
follow him. 

He felt persuaded that the Russians would risk 
a battle, because he knew that Napoleon would beat 
them, and therefore he wished it. I was persuaded 
for the same reason that they would not risk a 
battle, but retreat into the extremities of their domi- 
nions, and lead us after them. 

From my first arrival at Warsaw, I heard nothing 
but complaints of the horrible excesses of the West- 
phalians. They plundered and extorted from every 
one. Vandamme had already become an object of 
horror. Even Jerome was not spared. These cir- 
cumstances very ill recommended our cause. 

Let me now say a word as to the duchy of War- 
saw. It comprehended ten departments and near 
five millions of inhabitants. 

Its government was formed on the model of that 
of France ; it was composed of a senate, a council 



48 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

of state, and a council of ministers. The King, Bav^ 
ing his residence at Dresden, trusted the adminis- 
tration of the duchy to a council of ministers ; the 
resolutions of this council were transmitted to Dres- 
den, where they were accepted, rejected, or modi- 
fied ; a source of much tardiness in the administra- 
tion. Count Potocki presided. This is one of the 
most illustrious names in Poland, and a truly noble 
house. His wife, the Princess Lubonirska, was 
worthy of her rank and husband. The minister of 
finances, Count Mathuchwicz, was a man of know- 
ledge and talents, and the minister of war, Count 
Vielkowski, though old and infirm, reminded us of 
the zeal and activity of Florida Blanca. 

The army of the duchy was composed of about 
60,000 men, 40,000 infantry, and 20,000 cavalry. 
The support of such an army greatly exhausted the 
duchy, which, besides its natural poverty, was suf- 
fering under a scarcity approaching to a famine. Po- 
land has no other revenue or rent than what she 
derives from the sale of her corn. Her ports in the 
north are Dantzic and in the Baltic ; her ports in the 
south are the Niester, the Borysthenes, and Odessa. 
The Continental system had closed the first; the 
war with Turkey, the latter. Nothing, therefore, 
could exceed the poverty of the country at this pe- 
riod. There was no money because the corn had 
not been sold. And still there was no corn because 
it had become spoiled, the Polish corn not being of 
a nature to keep. 

Under all these circumstances nothing could ex- 
ceed the misery of all classes. The army was not 
paid — the officers were in rags— the best houses were 



to Warsaw an*) wilna. 49 

in ruins — the greatest lords were compelled to leave 
Warsaw from the want of money to provide their 
tables. No pleasures, no society^ no invitations as 
in Paris and in London. 1 even saw Princesses quit 
Warsaw from the most extreme distress. The Prin- 
cess Radziwil had brought two women from England 
and France, she wished to send them back, but had 
not the means to pay their journey. She detained 
them four months because she was unable to pay 
their salaries. I saw two French physicians in War- 
saw who informed me that they could not procure 
their fees even from the greatest lords. 

I could not sufficiently admire that confidence with 
which Napoleon precipitated his nation and his for- 
tune into an immense enterprize, formed on the faith 
of a most powerful co-operation on the part of a 
nation so deeply sunk in debt. This naturally leads 
me to examine what it was that could inspire that 
confidence. I think more causes than one might be 
assigned : — 

As 1st. The character of that Prince ; 

£dly. The Poles, the pamphleteers, and other po- 
liticians of the same stamp ; 

3dly. The Duke of Bassano. 

We have seen above that the attack on Russia was 
the finishing stroke of the Emperor's system in the 
order in which the submission of Europe was to be 
accomplished. The project had been settled, nothing 
more was wanting but the means of carrying it into 
effect and the time when it would be proper to begin. 

Into that project the extravagant character of this 
Prince fully entered in all its extent. His desires 
are ardent, his conceptions rapid ; obstacles he re- 

E 



50 NABRAT1VE OF AN EMBASSY 

moves by the force of power and of illusions. The 
Emperor is all system — all illusion, as a man can- 
not fail to be who is all imagination. He Ossianises 
in the transactions of life, if I may use the expres- 
sion. Any one who has observed the course which 
he has pursued, has seen him create an imaginary 
Spain, an imaginary Catholicism, an imaginary Eng- 
land, an imaginary system of finance, an imaginary 
nobility, and, above all — an imaginary France, and 
in these latter times, an imaginary Congress. He 
was demonstrating to me that the bishops* of the 
council were on his side one hour before they en- 
tirely deserted him. He falls into error in the most 
logical method, and pursues his observations into 
infinity, at the same time that he starts infinitely 
wide of the point for which he set out, which is false. 
He attacked the Spanish nation, furnishing them with 
a character and notions of his own invention. He 
had no idea of the nature of Catholicism when foe 
opened his controversy with the Pope and the Gal- 
lican Church. He argued with me that the religion 
of Voltaire was the religion of France, when at the 
same time there was not, from the lowest of the 
faithful to the highest Metropolitan of the country, 
one Frenchman who separated himself from the Pope, 
the more he had disappeared the more was he pre- 
sent to the eyes of all. In like manner, in his de- 
spair at seeing credit fly before him, he had -for many 
years directed all his anathemas and the pens of all 
his hireling writers against public credit, hoping, by 
such means, to extinguish that of England, and did 
not perceive that he was only. wasting- his strength in 
efforts which could have ho other effect than that of 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 51 

preparing a weapon which would be turned against 
himself in the day of his necessity. To minds so 
disposed, allurements alone are wanting ; every snare 
is good in their eyes. 

We must not, therefore, be astonished at the in- 
considerate precipitation with which Napoleon 
plunged into the Russian war. He has proceeded 
in that enterprize as in every other: he has calculated 
with respect to Russia as he has calculated with re- 
spect to Spain : in both cases he measured the re- 
sistance by the advantages which he expected to de- 
rive, and by the flattery which he suffered to ap- 
proach him. The Emperor's conceptions are im- 
mediately attended with the most eager desires — his 
thought becomes a passion at its birth — his mind 
becomes intoxicated by his reveries : his principal 
employment is to remove the difficulties which may 
be opposed to those dear children of his brain. He 
is naturally a restive animal, which the truth sets 
prancing, and which is obstinately bent against tak- 
ing the right road of reason. With him, affairs of 
the greatest moment assume the appearance of ca- 
price. In speaking on the business of Poland he, 
inadvertently said that it was a whim — (C'etait un 
caprice.) I leave this truly monstrous expression to 
the reader's reflection. 

The Emperor, besides, having taken it into his 
head that the art of reigning, aided by the assistance 
of councils, was foreign to every thing which comes 
within the range of his idolatry, was, of course, not 
accessible to any opinions but those which flatter his 
own : this is the greatest appeal which, can be made 
to deceit; it is also the most perfidious abyss Which 

E 2 



5% NARRATIVE OF Aft ES1BASST 

can be opened under the feet of him who delivers 
himself up to it. Those who are interested in it may 
in vain try to gain a man over to this object when he 
Is so disposed. The fox in the fable had not a finee 
game to play than all those who laboured to draw him 
into this enterprize had with Napoleon. On one side 
were the Poles, who looking upon the duchy of War- 
saw but as a step to the re-establishment of Poland, 
cultivated, with the greatest care all the seeds of this 
change which existed in the mind of the Emperor 
Napoleon. The honour of the Emperor — co-opera- 
tion on their part — the completion of the system 
formed by the Emperor's care — contempt of the 
enemy — every thing was resorted to in order to fire 
and inflame the mind of a man who was already but 
too much turned towards adventures. There did not 
come one Pole to Paris but who helped to charge 
the mine. Some of them sojourned there, and with 
the same views never separated themselves from per- 
sons who possessed influence. Of the two hundred 
and four dispatches which make up the correspon- 
dence of my predecessor, more than one hundred are 
monuments of the hopes and excitations of the Poles. 
We must also add the crowd of pamphleteers—of 
authors hatched by the fostering heat of the Moniteur, 
evil and false spirits, who from all quarters of France, 
and of Europe, ran at the least signal, and placed 
their pernicious talents, their very limited informa- 
tion, and their vast desires at the disposal of Napo- 
leon — a race as devoid of conscience as of true know- 
ledge — blind, though always speaking of light- 
hurtful in their own nature — without love or hate- 
always scattering disorder every where, at the same 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 53 

time that they were talking of organizing every thing; 
in a word, that cursed tribe of writers of the Brisso- 
tine school, and of that of Barrere and of the Moiii- 
teur, whose occupation for twenty-five years thafthe 
world has had the misfortune to be in their hands, 
has been to confound all notions of right and wrong, 
to raise from the corruption of their hearts and un- 
derstandings, vapours over ail political and moral 
truths, and who, in their madness, either natural, or 
that which they acted for money, have red need the 
world to a chaos of ruins and ashes, from which 
their talents or those of their equals will never be 
able to recover it. It is to the inspirations of such 
wretches that Napoleon liked to give himself up — 
any other representation was considered as unfor- 
tunate, or immediately rejected. When one aspires 
only to the formation of storms and tempests, he 
only wishes for the assistance of those who spread 
the winds. 

You may well imagine that these gentlemen were 
not sparing of their assistance on this occasion — that 
not one of them failed to answer when called upon. 
You may here also see the nature of those writings 
which this epoch brought forth. How Russia was 
represented in them ! What a pigmy did they make 
of her ! How was the incredulity of those persons 
insulted who measured Russia on a larger scale! 
Read the Moniteur of the preceding years, and of 
the year IS 12, and everything is found there. I 
know very well how some men were scorned, who, 
more perfect in judgment and in conscience, re- 
pelled with horror those depreciating exaggerations. 
it was in vain for them to represent, to cry aloud, 



54 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

to anticipate what was to happen hereafter ; they 
were not so much as listened to ; the spell had taken 
effect, and the infatuated hero was flying to his de- 
struction on the wings of flattery, imagining at the 
same time that he was flying to the summit of honour 
on the wings of victory. 

The Duke of Bassano had assumed to himslf 

the patronage of the Poles, and was besieged with 

them ; he paid them with hopes, for that incense of 

flattery which he received from them : every thing 

Polish charmed him. Infatuation is a principal trait 

in his feeble character. Every Pole was to him a 

Molakouski, a Mokranouski ; he spoke of the Poles 

as of knights errant, the very flowers of chivalry ; 

every representation disadvantageous to the Poles 

which was made to him, was odious to him — set 

him dancing mad ; I myself experienced this. From 

the tender regard which he professed for Poland, one 

would have rather taken him for a descendant of the 

Casimirs, or Jagello?is } than of an E,sculapius of 

Dijon. This clientship of a nation was flattering to 

his self-love. It was easy to perceive what was the 

course of ideas which he was disposed to favour — 

the kind of writings which he cherished — the nature 

of the instructions which he authorised and confirmed. 

It vvas sufficient for him to see the mind of his 

Master directed towards that latitude, to cause him 

to expand all his sails in the same course, and to 

order all his winds to fill them. 

But men will ask, who then is this Duke of Bas- 
sano, who, unfortunately for France, is found at- 
tached to every epoch of the revolution, from the 
short-hand writers box of the National Assembly, ir* 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 55 

which he was born a politician, till he arrived at the 
highest honours of the ministry, and who embarrasses 
the world with the problem of what is the intrinsic 
value of an upstart journalist? 

An ambitious mediocrity of talent — great self- 
complacency, even to the most minute details — the 
sybaritism of vanity — a Phylinthus with a heart of 
iron— a splendid miser of sensibility — a sublime 
genius in a coterie— pretensions to every kind of 
talent and to every species of knowledge — a dispo- 
sition to ape his master — the refinement of servility, 
the morality and eloquence of the Moniteur. — ■ 
Such did this Duke of Bassano, one of the scourges 
of the age, appear to me. 

These charges are severe — I feel they are ; they 
should not be made without proof; justice requires 
this. When we are about to dethrone a man from 
that fame to which he has been exalted— to deprive 
him of the treasure of his reputation, we should be 
armed with guns of every calibre to attack him in 
his citadel: but when a man's influence is found to 
be connected with the public calamities of his time, 
when his fortune and credit have been fed upon the 
disasters of the human race — when pride blinds a 
little puppet Atlas, on the point, of engaging to 
charge himself with one part of the burden of the 
world, and when his vanity persuades him that he is 
sporting with this burden, which is still not so heavy 
as he is in his own person sacred — when he sports with 
the interests of so many men, can one be too severe? 
In such a case is it-not our right, our duty, to invoke 
— to cause the awful, the impartial voice of those 
three sisters, justice, morality =• and. history, which 



56 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

should ever be inseparable, to resound like a clap of 
thunder, to make that mask fall off, behind which a 
juggler, scattering innumerable misfortunes with the 
most serene and assured countenance, has frequently 
succeeded in obtaining the homage of his very 
victims? These Tartuffes of sensibility have been 
too much spared-— These interested ambitious men— •* 
these slaves of every favour, who, satisfied with 
clothing themselves with honourable appearances, 
see only, in the affairs of mankind, the drift of for- 
tune or of pleasure — in their equals, but footstools, 
and in their masters, idols to whom they are to offer 
incense, and whose praise they are to extol. Let 
us give to every man that which belongs to him ; 
and let this Duke of Bassano, who has so much 
sought flattery, in order to deceive himself and 
others, learn, at length, that he has not deceived all 
the world. 

The Duke of Bassano began his career in 1790, 
with reporting the proceedings of the Constituent 
Assembly for a newspaper. Read the now neg- 
lected Memoirs of Dumourier, and you will find 
him in the embassy of Chauvelin at London at the 
time of the death of Louis XVI. and on the eve of 
supplanting the ambassador, when the whole of the 
gang was driven from London. The Diplomacy of 
the Convention appeared to have nothing alarming, 
or capable of shaking the robust fibres which com- 
pose the tissue of his heart. He was entrusted by 
the Convention with that mission which the Austrians 
had disturbed at the entrance of the Valteline, by 
seizing him ; Semonviiie, and I know not what 
other incendiary. Restored to France by exchange 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 57 

for the daughter of Louis XVI. on the establishment 
of the Consulate, he succeeded M. Legarde as se- 
cretary to the Council of Government, and he held 
that post till he succeeded M. de Champagny as 
Minister for foreign affairs ; that office had long been 
the object of his ambition. The labours of the 
cabinet, in their nature always obscure, presented 
to him too limited a horizon — a theatre too con-' 
tracted for his talents. He would be the minister 
of France, or rather of Europe ; for in the state in 
which things then were, the French minister for 
foreign affairs was nothing less. 

The Duke of Bassano thought that dazzling ap- 
pearances—a politeness too common to be flattering 
to any one to whom it might be addressed — too much 
of common-place to admit of being personally ap- 
plied, constituted the essential part of his ministry, 
and covered all the faults of the minister. 

His mode of discussing a subject is heavy, em- 
barrassing, never precise nor luminous ; his elocu*- 
tion wire-drawn. His principles those of conveni- 
ence, force, and all that train of sophisms of which 
French diplomacy has been composed these twenty- 
five years past. The day spent in dissipation, the 
hour for labour at length arrives. The clock strikes 
twelve at night, business is recollected, and the 
minister shuts himself up in his cabinet. The clerks 
are called, and set to work. Woe to him whom 
sleep overpowers. About five in the morning the 
active minister goes to repose from his works of 
darkness, leaving to his wretched underlings the care 
of digesting the high conceptions with which he had 
entrusted them. Demosthenes said, that bis labours 



58 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

smelt of oil. Those of the Duke of Bassano, that 
I have received, have no better odour. 

Flattery is the only sure road by which to arrive 
at the Duke of Bassano, with him every thing 
must be flattered, every thing admired, even to his 
Duchess's little dog. A witty gentleman has re- 
marked, that this little dog had made a considerable 
number of Prefects and Auditeurs. He possesses a 
love Of neatness which certainly participates of his 
personal self-love. It is charming to hear him re- 
counting trifles — -to hear him dwelling with great 
force on matters of the most trifling moment — to see 
him pulling roses. The Duke of Bassano is famous 
for his steady friendship ; with him it is said to be a 
religion. Well, I have detected him in infidelity to his 
deity. About the end of the month of June, M. Andre, 
formerly well known as President of the Constituent 
Assembly, arrived at Warsaw. He had been sent for 
from Vienna, where he resided by the Duke of Bas- 
sano ; he never knew why, or I either. The Duke 
desired him to stop near me, and to wait for further 
orders. M. Andre is perhaps the author of the 
Duke's fortune, by having caused a box to be 
fitted up for him and his journal in the body of the 
assembly. 

He shewed me a letter from the Duke, as it 
served as his credentials with me. It was full of 
expressions of kindness and of eagerness to see him, 
which convinced me that he was an intimate friend 
of the Duke. I had known M. Andre only by 
seeing him in the Assembly, under another banner 
than that which I followed. I have since regretted 
my tardy knowledge of him ; for I have found him^ 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 5Q 

in all respects, one of the worthiest men with whom 
I was ever acquainted. Some weeks passed without 
any news from the Duke; letters remained un- 
answered. I endeavoured to calm the patient, who 
was sometimes for proceeding to Wilna, at other 
times for returning to Vienna. At length a whole 
campaign passed away without a line being received 
from the Duke. He, however, came to Warsaw ; 
dined with me in company with M. Andre without 
speaking a word to him, or answering his applica- 
tion for an audience. When, indignant at this 
neglect of all the duties of friendship, politeness 
and office, I pointed out to him the necessity of not 
removing without taking some notice of his old friend, 
he yielded, and spoke to him aside at the window, 
where he drily proposed to pay his travelling ex- 
pences, which were rigorously calculated, with a 
man whom he had brought more than two hundred 
leagues, who had quitted every thing at his invita- 
tion, and whom he was now sending back in the 
severest season. Thus ended the drama of his ten- 
derness for M. Andre. I think the theatre might 
work up this incident to advantage. All the bye- 
standers remained in that sort of confusion which 
is made up of astonishment and indignation. 

I shall readily admit as much sensibility in this 
Duke of Bassano as his friends can wish, and which 
they extol so highly ; but let any one explain to me 
the nature, of that sensibility which does not prevent 
a man from writing, in order to reproach me with 
having exhibited some sensibility at the burning of 
Moscow, which inculcated the truly hideous . prin- 
ciple that my duty required me to make that event 



60 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

a motive to enthusiasm — for a calamity greater than 
mankind has experienced since the burning of 
Troy ! — who, when spoken to about thirty leagues 
of country laid waste and reduced to ashes, on the 
entry of the French army into Lithuania, (the de- 
vastation extended from the Niemen as far as 
Wilna, in the expectation fchat it would reach 
Moscow) answered, that " it had not reached its 
height" — who, whilst French and Russians, friends 
and enemies, were slaying each other, were perish- 
ing by myriads, by a thousand kinds of deaths, was 
most tranquilly enjoying the play at Wilna! for 
during the entire summer, his theatre was not shut 
up for one night — who, when the matter under con- 
sideration is an order of his master, or is what is 
termed a political combination, runs head foremost 
through all misfortunes towards an object oftentimes 
pointed out by a blockhead. To devour, to swallow 
up whole nations, is nothing in his eyes. — To be 
servile at any price, is every thing. 

The only talent possessed by the Duke of Bassano 
was that of explaining the Emperor's ideas. It was 
curious to see with what an air he contemplated and 
listened to him. You would have sworn that he was 
worshipping him. I never saw a more perfect de- 
votee. The repression of his own powers of thought 
and reflexion was carried to such a height, that he 
seemed to alienate his own mind in favour of that 
of the Emperor. He wrote to me on the 6th of 
July the following words : — " The discourse which 
you addressed to me seduced me, but the Emperor 
remarked to me that it was bad, and he is right." As 
to his talents, we can judge of them not only from the 
Moniteur, of which he was supposed to be one of 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 61 

the principal editors, but from the acts which have 
emanated from him during his ministry. Among other 
articles I would recommend to the reader's notice, 
the report on the declaration of war with Prussia in 
1813. It will there be seen that because the Em- 
peror was about to make war on Russia, it was ne- 
cessary that Prussia should be effaced from the list 
of nations. A pretty sample this of the Duke of 
Bassano's logic. 

It will be there seen that the finger of Providence 
is evidently imprinted on the events of that winter — 
of that winter which cost the lives of three hundred 
thousand Frenchmen, that the Emperor might see 
who were his friends and who were his enemies — a 
.knowledge dearly purchased. 

The Duke of Bassano has had the merit of per- 
fecting that system of jugglery and deception by 
means of which the political quacks, who governed 
for so many years, have constantly endeavoured to 
pervert facts, to mutilate and twist them, in order 
to extract poison from them — a system formed in an 
age of liberty and of knowledge, to aid one man to 
push on thousands of his fellow-men to ruin and 
to death through the road of darkness and ignorance. 

' I reign by the means of Gazettes/' said the 
Emperor. Those disastrous deceptions mounted to 
such an height, that at Wilna when the army flocked 
together to keep each other warm, to repair some 
of their immense losses, the Duke of Bassano was 
giving fetes, proclaiming victories, and by these 
means was lulling to sleep the corps diplomatique, to 
whom, in the following day, he allowed but 'six 

hours to prepare for their departure, who were tra- 



62 . NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

veiling when the glass was twenty-five degrees below 
the freezing point, which cost the American minister, 
Barlow, his life, who died eight days after of an 
inflammation of the lungs. The Duke boasted to 
me at Warsaw of this subtle political contrivance, as 
of a really masterly manoeuvre. It was truly cu- 
rious to hear the incessant imprecations of the corps 
diplomatique against the Duke, who' treated him 
in no other light than a mountebank, and who 
loaded him with many other disgraceful epithets. 

The Duke of Bassano made himself the Em- 
peror's ape. 

Because' the Emperor was brought up in the pro- 
fession of arms, the Duke of Bassano considered 
himself a general. The" Emperor having charged 
him with the correspondence of that corps cVArmee 
which remained behind in Poland, whilst he him- 
self was at Moscow, the Duke commenced lec- 
turing the Generals, and directing their operations. 
I. have heard gentlemen of the profession say that* 
his audiences and his military notions' were perfectly 
ridiculous; he had thrown every thing into confu- 
sion; that which he wrote to me on the subject of 
war was absurd. 

As the Emperor always decided with brevity, the 
Dukeof Bassano thought he should never express him- 
self doubtingly on any subject. I shall give an exam- 
ple of this. In' passing through Warsaw, he spoke to 
me on the subject of a remount which he had ordered 
in Moldavia. On my remarking, that; as the 
horses were brought from a great distance, and as 
they were unbroken, no use could be made of them 
before the moath of May, he smartly replied, *' Sir, 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 63 

we lay hold of a horse, place a man on his back, 
and that is cavalry.'' 

Because Napoleon has always attended to the 
supply of his own wants above those of others, the - 
Duke of Bassano believed that every body should 
be ready to sacrifice his own to him. It was at* 
tempted to levy ten thousand horse in the Duchy — 
I say it was attempted, for that number of horses 
proper for cavalry was not to be found. 1 told him 
so. " But they are required besides (said he,) for 
the Emperor." " But the Duchy (said I) should 
have its own wants first supplied." " Furnish the 
Emperor first of all : the Duchy may then apply 
to the Russians — they sell every thing for money." 

Public opinion accuses the Duke of Bassano with 
the most decided inclination for those proceedings, 
which infringe the security of other states. — He is 
reproached with having declared against peace at 
Dresden, when it would have left France in a highly 
flourishing state, even after the reverses of the Rus- 
sian campaign. He is also reproached with having 
obstinately persisted in his warlike disposition after 
the battle of Leipsic, and during the negotiations 
at Chatillon. To crown these serious charges, he 
is believed to have acted a considerable part in the 
return of Napoleon, and he has shewed a marked 
zeal for maintaining at the head of affairs, a. man 
who could not but be as fatal to the country as 
useful to this minister. During the short existence 
of the. late usurpation, he was remarked for his 
warmth in favour of Napoleon I. and Napoleon 
II. as if one of them had not been enough, r 

It is now for the reader to judge, whether I have 



64 NARRATIVE OF AST EMBASSY 

not performed my task, and whether I have trans** 
gressed the bounds of justice and of moderation, 
in the charges which I have made against the Duke 
of Bassano — I will now resume my narrative ; the 
foregoing is a long digression, but without it the 
rest would not be well understood. 

*f When the events which were about to take 
place in Poland were on the point of commencing, 
the King of Saxony, at the desire of the Emperor, 
very much enlarged the powers of the council of 
ministers. It was in virtue of those powers that the 
council assembled the local diets for the nomination 
of deputies to the grand diet, which was about to 
meet. It was generally wished that Prince Czarto- 
rinsky should be nominated Nuncio of the city of 
Warsaw. The baton of marshal of the diet was 
intended for him, and for this purpose a place was 
vacated by the resignation of Count Lubienski, son 
of the minister of justice. 

" The important day at length arrived, and the 
diet was opened. The council directed all its 
movements. 

" It had been regulated that this act should be 
divided into two parts ; in the first, a sitting conse- 
crated to religious and civil ceremonies, as well as to 
the formation of a commission in order to draw up a 
report on the state of affairs, and the measures 
which they required, every thing was done as it had 
been agreed upon. The commission, to speak fa- 
vourably of it, was provided with but one reporter, 
viz. Count Mathuchewitz, the minister of finance ; 
assistants were given merely for form-sake. The 
character for talents which the count enjoyed, had 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 65 

caused this employment to be conferred on him by 
the unanimous vote of the council. He, however, 
struck upon a rock. — As I am obliged to speak of 
myself it is necessary for me to enter somewhat into 
detail. 

" Many ministers had been at Posen, when the 
Emperor passed through that place, for the purpose 
•of paying their respects to him, in the audience 
which he gave to them in that place, in which, in his 
usual manner, he advanced a thousand extravagan- 
cies ; he spoke to them concerning the diet — of the 
mode in which it should be opened. Then touching, 
amongst other things, on the speech which it would 
be proper to deliver at the opening, he added, in 
that vague and vulgar language so familiar to him— 
i I do not lay you under any constraint : say what 
you please — make it fifty pages.' The habit of ser- 
vility had so far taken possession of all men's minds 
— had so far banished all reflection, and terrified 
them with the consequences to be apprehended from 
deviating in the smallest degree from what might be 
considered as an order, even in things the most in- 
different, that poor Count Mathuchewitz would have 
thought he was committing the crime of treason 
against his supreme lord, and would irrecoverably 
have destroyed all chance of the restoration of Po- 
land, had he been so rash as to write forty- nine or 
fifty-one pages instead of the fifty which had been 
prescribed to him by the Emperor. Such an at- 
tempt could not meet with a less punishment. Con- 
sequently he had written fifty heavy pages, which, 
in-order to shew still greater respect, were as long as 
the folios of a solicitor. 



66 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

" Such prolixity very rarely accords with elo- 
quence, and I cannot conceive by what means, or 
upon what subject, a man can flatter himself with 
being able to excite and to fix the attention of his 
audience for such a long time — that faculty which is 
so much disposed to be fatigued — that spring which 
incessantly tends to lose its elasticity. The count 
shewed us the inconveniences of this prolixity in 
their entire extent. Astonishment took possession 
of one part of the council, and sleep of another, 
during the time of his reading that composition. 
He had done his best ; in parts he had succeeded 
well; but the whole was far from being good. Re- 
marks and corrections were proposed. The work 
resisted all correction. Fatigued at length with un- 
availing attempts, foreseeing the consequences of 
an unhappy debut, I ventured to make an offer of 
my inclinations and efforts to the council, to be em- 
ployed in any way they pleased. It may be very 
easily supposed that a proposition of this nature is 
not without thorns : I felt it to be so. It might ap- 
pear to be presumptuous, and perhaps offensive to 
substitute one's-self in the room of the man of the 
highest character in the assembly. The satisfaction 
which self-love might feel touched so closely on the 
humiliation of the self-love of many others. To 
fail or give up is to be instrumental to one's own 
discredit. But it was impossible to make use of the 
count's speech — if we made use of it we must have 
resolved before hand to bear the laugh of all Europe 
raised against us. Already had two former acts, 
which had proceeded from the same source, ap- 
peared, without exciting any remark. The king of 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA; 67 

Westphalia, after reading them, said to me, c Mr. 
Ambassador, it is impossible to make any thing of 
this ; take the business into your own hands/ 
Pressed therefore between a choice of difficulties, I 
decided on taking the most honourable part, which 
in business is always the surest. I expressed so 
strong a desire to see Poland re-appear in the most 
honourable manner before the eyes of Europe, 
which were fixed on her — I took so much care to 
keep myself in the back ground, that my proposi- 
tion was most cordially received: I did not even 
remark, and I am happy to say so, that kind of 
curiosity and malignity which is uniformly attached 
to propositions of that nature. The next day I car- 
ried my discourse to the council. 

" I find it difficult to express the sensation which 
it produced there. A second reading was called 
for. I never witnessed such surprize — such atten- 
tion : the expressions of gratitude were unbounded, 
and the orator who had. been supplanted, joined, his 
to the general congratulations with a degree of zeal 
and warmth still more flattering to him who ad- 
dressed them, than to him to whom they were ad- 
dressed. A long time after this he even added, 
f You are the cause of compliments being paid me, 
which embarrass me, and which I have scarcely 
deserved.' 

" The report of the committee was read in the 
sitting of the diet on the 26th of June. . What a 
day was that 1 What joy 1 What eagerness ! Who 
can paint them in an adequate manner? 

" I saw .Count Mathuchewitz advancing, holding 
•bis speech in his hand. All eyes were fixed on hjou 

F2; , 



68 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

He speaks. The crowd, till then extremely agitated, 
hears him with such silence, that not a voice but his 
was to be heard. The name of Poland is at length 
pronounced, immediately there followed a universal 
clap of hands, every voice was raised in reiterated 
shouts of applause — they are continued outside the 
hall— the courts of the palace, the adjacent streets, 
ring with the same shouts — the enthusiasm was ge- 
neral — I never saw any thing to equal it. When 
the orator addressed himself to Prince Czartorinski, 
grand marshal of the diet, in compliment to whom 
an apostrophe was introduced, which called to mind 
his past services, the same transports, succeeded by 
the same great agitations of feeling, were renewed : 
this day must have been the proudest of his long 
and honourable career. In a word, nothing could 
be added to make the effect more complete ; and 
that day, as well as the following, presented in all 
Warsaw the most lively and most impressive image 
of happiness. By degrees a calm succeeded, and 
after a few days nothing of this kind was to be seen. 

" I, from that time, began to perceive, that in 
proportion as we were marching onwards, a wind 
was blowing behind us, which was effacing the traces 
of our footsteps as soon as we impressed them in 
this moving sand : I shall presently explain the na- 
ture of that wind. ' 

" When the diet was opening at Warsaw, the 
campaign was also opening on the Niemen : that 
river was crossed on the 22d of June. The army 
reached Wilna the 24th June, The Emperor en- 
tered it on the 26th of that month. The military 
movements had been proceeded by a proclamatioa 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 69 

which has become very famous. This proclamation 
arrived at Warsaw at the first day of the opening of 
the diet. The superstitious looked upon this coin- 
cidence as a continuance of the influence of the 
famous star of Napoleon, that star which has since 
turned so pale. It would be curious to read, at the 
present day, these proclamations, written in the 
style of one inspired, in which a kind of Mahomet 
pronounced himself every thing, and allowed him- 
self every thing. It may serve as the sequel to 
another prediction crowned with a degree of success 
entirely similar; — that in which the Emperor an- 
nounced to his legislative body, that the war of the 
Peninsula would end in a clap of thunder. 

" We may remark, that in the discourse deli- 
vered at the opening of the diet, the words, ' the 
kingdom of Poland,' and ' the body of the Polish 
nation,' were distinctly pronounced. This precise 
specification resulted from a formal injunction con- 
tained in my instructions. The meaning was clear ; 
and expressed that the intention was to re-establish 
the kingdom of Poland in all its integrity. The 
diet separated after it had sat some days : it had 
acted its part, and was not to meet again till the end 
of the drama, for the purpose of closing all by the 
establishment of a new order. 

" This, agreeably to ancient forms, was a diet of 
confederation. There was left behind, at the time 
of its prorogation, a council of confederation, com- 
posed of twelve members. The difficulty which was 
found to complete this number with men possessed 
of some qualifications for business, gives us but a 
middling idea of the resources of this country, as 



70 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

to the proper instruments of an administration. In 
reality it was not very far advanced ; this council 
itself was never very strong. The members met 
every day, received addresses, petitions, and oaths 
relative to the confederation. They were disposed 
to go greater lengths, but were stopped by an obsta- 
cle of which I shall speak. 

" The king had joined the confederation ; it was 
thought that his accession would add force to the 
federal link ; for my part 1 never saw very clearly 
what good purpose it answered. 

" We now perceive with what instruments and 
with what support I had to work, and to make my 
way. 

u The campaign had been opened without mak- 
ing any provision for it : that was the method of 
Napoleon. Some of his foolish admirers think that 
it was to such policy he owed his successes. Now 
we know, with far greater certainty, that it is to this 
he owes his reverses. Above all it was provender for 
his horses which failed him. Four hundred thou« 
sand men, and one hundred thousand horses were 
suddenly thrown on Lithuania. The fires are kin- 
dled forthwith ; one line of conflagration and de- 
struction marked the rout of the army from the 
Niemen to Wilna. The kingdom of Prussia, though 
on friendly terms with us, was also very badly 
treated. 

" It was on this occasion that the gentle Duke of 
Bassano said, that in truth the evil was great, but 
that it had not as yet penetrated deep ; which was 
false, for the troops advancing with the same dis- 
order in all directions, in a short time every thing, 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 71 

was destroyed, and the excuse of its not having pe- 
netrated very deeply reduced to a cold but atrocious 
absurdity, as every subtlety used in the support of 
cruelty generally is. 

" The corn had been cut down to supply the 
want of forage, and the horses sent to feed on 
green fodder. They were not, however, suffered to 
make less speed on that account : a dreadful storm 
overtook them, and, lo! ten thousand of those 
wretched animals fell dead, whose carcasses poi- 
soned the air for six months, on the rout from 
Kowno to Wilna, from which road they were the 
cause of turning away travellers. During this time, 
the king of Westphalia and his army were at a dis- 
tance from Warsaw, and were marching against 
Prince Bagration. 

" I felt very sensibly the unpleasantness of my 
situation, and the few resources which I found at 
Warsaw. I endeavoured to inspire a little more 
valour into the government, and communicated the 
cause of my chagrin to the duke, as well as of my 
apprehensions and my ideas. But as they hap- 
pened not to square with those which had pleased 
him to forge on the subject of Poland, for which his 
infatuation was extreme, he signified some displea- 
sure to me, and ended with prescribing to me to 
keep myself free from politics, and to confine my- 
self to providing for the wants of the army. It was 
surely the first time that an ambassador was ex- 
cluded from taking any share in politics. Behold 
me, then, from ambassador become a war commis- 
sary ! I reproached the duke with this conduct on 
passing through Warsaw; he did not contradict 



72 KAHRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

what I said. But here we have an instance of how 
things are managed in France— a man is taken tor 
one employment, and straightway he is put into 
another — he is forced to exchange the highest for 
the lowest. — Thus we have seen, in 1806, a great 
personage charged at Warsaw with the superintend 
dance of the corn. 

" In the mean time I received a dispatch which 
completed my despair, and which tore aside the cur- 
tain which covered our present and future evils. I 
$hall explain myself — 

" The Duke of Bassano had, on receiving my 
speech at the opening of the diet, lavished on me 
the most flattering encomiums. According to his 
judgment it was the choicest morsel which the age 
had produced. Of course I considered my poor 
speech as quite safe ; but what must I think when, 
m opening the duke's dispatch, under date of the 
!6th of July, I read these words: 

" ' Your discourse had seduced me; but the 
Emperor has found it to be bad, and I am obliged 
to acknowledge that he is right His Majesty is of 
opinion that, an address, drawn up at Posen by an 
old Pole, written in a bad style, but a style evidently 
Polish 'would have been better. What I write is 
agreeably to his Majesty's order, and I had almost 
said from his dictation.' Four pages follow, the 
publications of which, at the present time, now that 
our passions are cool, would cover their author with 
shame. 

" I confess that I was thunder-struck on reading 
this strange letter, and the impression I received 
from it was so strong, that since that time I never 



TO WARSAW Ax\D WILNA. 73 

laid my hands on the seals which closed the precious 
dispatches of the duke without fear and trembling. 
They were hateful to me, and when one day passed 
over without any arrival from the duke, I was en- 
chanted. This would have been altogether inex- 
plicable without some observations. The Emperor 
is all trick, but his cunning is backed by force* 
Men think differently, and are under an error. To 
triumph is to him nothing, to deceive is to him every 
thing. He attaches much more value to his cunning 
than he does to his power. This comes from his 
self-love, which makes him think that his cunning is 
more in his own personal quality than his power. — 
i I am cunning,' he has said to me above a hundred 
times in his discussions with the court of Rome : — 
6 They are Italians, and so am I.' 

This pretension to superior penetration misled him 
so far at the battle of Waterloo, that insisting that 
the Prussian corps was that of Marshal Grouchy, he 
complimented himself by saying, "lam an old Fox." 

" All his plans are calculated on the idea of a 
labyrinth : his play and amusement is to lead his 
adversaries from the point ; to hold the thread and 
the secret m his own hand. It was upon a model of 
this sort that he arranged the business of Poland.— 
We have seen that he has set all his instruments to 
work in order to deceive Russia; that he endea- 
voured in like manner to deceive Austria — Prussia — 
the King of Saxony— and that at the very time he 
was making use of their services ; they were not to 
be informed of the use to which these services were 
to be applied, but by the unravelling of the plot ; he 
^kaed aft crowning this fabric <rf falsehoods with de^ 



74 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

ceiving all Europe taken together ; and how was he 
to do this? He wished to be able to persuade peo- 
ple that he had nothing whatever to do with the 
movements of Poland, and that every thing pro- 
ceeded from herself; that he confined himself to 
accept her co-operation in searching after a repara- 
tion of the wrongs which she imputed to Russia. 

" Thus did this truly inconceivable man aim at 
mystifying the whole world (pardon the expression), 
by endeavouring to persuade men, that when he 
was marching against Russia at the head of four 
hundred thousand men, of which a part were Poles 
— when his ambassador was setting in the council of 
Warsaw he aimed, (I repeat it) at persuading the 
world that he and his ambassadors were but specta- 
tors to all that was passing in Poland. Is not this, 
in truth, too much to expect of human credulity? 

" The Emperor halted at Wilna from the 28th of 
June till the 14th of July; he then marched upon 
Witepsk, from which place he proceeded to Smo- 
lensk. These pauses were necessary for the pur- 
pose of re-establishing order in his army, which was 
in a state of the most complete disorganization; it 
had arrived to such an height, that one of his aides- 
de-camp, a truly military man, was of opinion that 
they were marching on towards a catastrophe. 

" The Emperor, when he entered Wilna, esta- 
blished a provisional government, distinct from that 
of the duchy of Warsaw. The duke had taken 
care to include in the number of members, the name 
of one of his friends, Prince Alexander Sapieha, 
whose appointment was very disagreeable to the 
Poles. I judge not of their motives, but only state 



T6 WARSAW AND WILNA. 75 

the fact. I have often heard them reproach this 
appointment as a great fault. Another fault which 
equally affected the Poles in a great degree, was 
the separation of Lithuania from the duchy. — Per- 
haps they were wrong ; in the state of the duchy, 
which had become the property of the King of 
Saxony, perhaps they should have seen that this 
separation was but of a temporary nature, and was 
destined to be lost in the union of all the parts of 
Poland in one body politic. I have often repre- 
sented it to them in this light ; but could never suc- 
ceed so far as to cure their discontents and their 
jealousies. 

" It had been agreed upon that a deputation of 
the confederation should wait on the Emperor at 
Wilna. The speech which Count Stanislaus Po- 
tocki had prepared was judged insufficient. I re- 
placed it with another. The same judgment as that 
passed on my speech addressed to the diet, was 
passed also by the Emperor on this. He caused it 
to be replaced by a speech of a harsh and coarse 
fabric, in the course of which, the Emperor was 
addressed in these words : ' Speak, and sixteen mil- 
lions of Poles are ready to rise up ! Mark those 
words, sixteen millions of Poles !' The rest was of 
a similar consistency. 

" The confused, evasive answer of Napoleon 
spoiled everything: it dismayed the Poles. These 
good people, no more subtle than myself, enter- 
tained no doubts as to Napoleon's cunning, nor as ttf 
the labyrinth which he had pictured to himself. 
They had set out all fire, but returned all ice. Their 
coldness communicated itself to all Poland, and 



76 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

after that time we were never able to bring it back to 
a state of warmth. The duke wrote wonderful 
things to me about the great depth of this answer. 
He enjoined my secresy respecting the change made 
in the speech, which gave me very little uneasiness. 
The King of Westphalia, on his return to Warsaw, 
was in extacies from the wonderful abilities which 
this speech displayed, and discovered that the Em- 
peror had surpassed himself, by descending in this 
way by prudence to refinement, which was so directly 
opposite to the natural ardour of his genius. As for 
me, I remained in my state of incredulity, and per- 
sisted in thinking, as did all Poland, that this mark 
of genius was indeed nothing more than a remarkable 
trait of aukwardness, and would produce an effect 
directly contrary to that which was expected to be 
produced ; which happened accordingly. We ex- 
perienced, at Warsaw, that which is felt in every 
business — the effect of what had been done before, 
as well as of the conduct, good or bad, of the agents 
which are employed. 

" The public almost always confine their views to 
appearances, and judge of the march and issue of 
affairs from some observations, or from some general 
principles, whilst hidden springs weaken and often 
destroy the game which is played openly. This ja 
what happened to us at Warsaw, and from this may 
be explained that kind of torpor in which the nation 
remained in the midst of patriotic bursts of enthu- 
siasm and civic shouts, which resounded from all 
parts. Behold the reason why all Poland was not 
mounted on horseback, as Napoleon announced he 
was about to do, to his prefect of Metz, 



TO WARSAW AKD WItNA. 77 

<( .We have already seen that public and private 
wretchedness were at their height in the Duchy ; 
that this country maintained an army far above its 
means ; that the imposts were enormous, though far 
inferior to the wants of the government ; that the 
army, for a long time past, had been in want of 
every thing, though every thing had been given to 
it, and though it had swallowed up every thing; 
that the functionaries had not been paid their sala- 
ries ; that for six years back the continental system 
had destroyed all commerce — had dried up every 
source of wealth, and that, to crown the misfor- 
tune, clouds of soldiers, inebriated by riot, and 
famishing from want, had pounced upon the little 
which remained from the inclemency of the season. 
All this was by no means adapted to rekindle the 
zeal of the nation. The Grandees, some part of 
the Noblesse, and of the professions termed liberal, 
put themselves in motion, and made sacrifices, in 
expectation of the Revolution; this is what always 
happens ; but the mass of the nation was uncon- 
cerned in this impulse. Doubless the nation would 
have seen the re-establishment of Poland with great 
pleasure, if it could be brought about as with the 
turning of the wand of a Fairy; but if they must 
pay for the change with all their fortune, which had 
escaped six long years of efforts and privations, most 
certainly they would not wish to have it. at that 
price. Let us leave it to those busy, pragmatical 
fellows who live upon the misfortunes and troubles 
of their country, to say that every thing should be 
sacrificed to the mode of political existence : nothing 
is more false than this doctrine. The primary con- 



73 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASST 

cerh of all, and that to which every thing has a 
relation, is existence ; the mode is a secondary con- 
sideration. Thus it appears, that when the Em- 
peror, on his passing through Warsaw, undertook 
to prove to me that as the Duchy had given him 
thirty thousand men in 1806', it should supply him 
with one hundred thousand in 1812, he committed 
a great error, by comparing two periods together 
entirely dissimilar, and shewed me, without per- 
ceiving it himself, that the art of comparing dates 
was utterly unknown to him. He equally forgot 
both the efforts and privations of the Poles during 
six years, and falsely concluded, because they had 
done so much they could still do it ; while sound 
logic required that the conclusion should be on the 
contrary ; that inasmuch as they had done so much, 
they were not now able to make additional ex- 
ertions. 

" I found the Poles drained — exhausted — sup- 
porting with the most feverish impatience the yoke 
of the Continental system — that plague, like those 
winds which the torrid zone sometimes vomits forth, 
has dried up every thing which the baleful breath 
of its author could reach. 

" From a contrary disposition, in some respects, 
but which most certainly has existed, the Poles re- 
garded great efforts on their part as entirely su- 
perfluous ; the opinion of the Emperor's power was 
so strongly established among them, that they were 
firmly convinced that it was sufficient for him to say 
with respect to Poland, as the Divinity had with 
respect to light, let there be a kingdom of Po- 
land, and that a kingdom of Poland would be, 



TO WARSAW AND WILSTA. 7£ 

Proofs of such unbounded confidence filled the dis- 
patches of my predecessor at Warsaw. There 
never was but one thing doubtful on this point 
among the Poles, namely, whether the war would 
be declared on the part of Russia or on the part of 
France — in other respects they looked upon the re- 
sult as certain as it would be infallible id its effects. 
After having furnished a body of troops amounting 
to more than eighty thousand men, and provisions 
for more than four hundred thousand, they thought, 
and justly, that they had supplied their contingent. 
The Poles wished much to arrive at the restoration 
of their country, but they did not wish to travel to, 
it by it by the road of devastation and absolute ruin. 
Every thing has its price. The only thing to be done 
was to fix that price. But besides, how can any 
.one imagine that a mighty mass of men would pro- 
ceed to strip themselves gladly of every thing which 
they possessed, for the purpose of procuring a 
change in a government under which they were 
prospering ; for nothing can be farther from the truth 
than what has been propagated and believed respect- 
ing the state of Poland under the Russian and Prus- 
sian government. To listen to the politics of the 
government of Paris, the Poles must have been 
taken for Helots ; when the fact was, that their con- 
dition was infinitely ameliorated under the hands of 
these two governments, and when they had found 
amends in security, and riches for what they had 
lost in nationality. I can bear witness that I never 
heard any thing else than benedictions bestowed on 
the Prussian government, and that I never heard 
any complaint made against the Russian govern- 



gO NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASST 

ment, by the Lithuanians 'and Volhinians, except 
that of their being no longer Poles, for in every 
other respect they praised it very much. 

a Consequently, when the Poles happened to 
find in their pretended liberators the devastators of 
unfortunate Spain, they recoiled with horror from 
the sight of a good, which was sold to them at a 
price so very dear, and prayed heaven to return it 
upon their enemies. 

M Let us consign to history the care of retracing 
this sad picture : others will be found in sufficient 
numbers who shall take charge of it — too many mo- 
numents will bear witness to it. For us, as French- 
men, let us turn our eyes aside from it, while we 
regret, at the same time, that we cannot turn aside 
the eyes of the whole world. The only thing which I 
dare allow myself to say is, that, during seven 
months that I sat in the council of Warsaw, verj 
few days passed over without the most afflicting re- 
ports being made to scatter consternation amongst 
us. I recollect that the minister of the finances told 
me, one day, of two of his near relations having 
escaped from the devastation of their estates in Li- 
thuania, and of conduct worse than the massacre 
of their families, who, robbed and left naked on 
the trunk of a tree before their habitation, which 
had been reduced to ashes, were become thus ex- 
posed to the blows of soldiers intoxicated from a 
riotous course of life and the use of spirituous 
liquors ; and that to close all, that the shock which 
their reason had received from so many acts of vio- 
lence, had reduced them to such a state as to pre- 
vent their appearing to any one. 



TO WARSAW AND WILV4 81 

u Another day we had an account of the burn- 
ing of children — what shall I say? It is better to 
stop here — it would be better not to have com- 
menced. All these horrors arose out of a system as 
absurd as it was inhuman, of making war wirhout 
establishing magazines. A sort of system has been 
created which has become the scourge of armies as 
well as of nations — which has destroyed the art of 
war, and which has placed all those who follow this 
profession, formerly so noble, among the number of 
ferocious animals of prey. He who has thus de- 
praved the hearts of generous warriors — who by 
such means has increased the calamities inseparable 
from a state of war a hundred fold, has merited the 
maledictions of the human race. Such then, are the 
sufferings to which the wretched Poles were reduced 
during seven months. My heart bleeds when I 
recal to mind all those horrors ; and why must it not 
bleed when I think of what the Countess Alexander 
Potocki, the daughter-in-law of Count Stanislaus 
Potocki, a lady of great understanding, and the 
mother of many children, said to me one day ; c Of 
a revenue of six hundred thousand livres which I 
possess in Lithuania, there remain to me, at the 
present moment, nothing but the heavens above 
and the earth beneath ; all the rest is gone for twenty 
years to come; I have nothing to expect from my 
former fortune. Let me stop here, and enquire 
what could have inspired into French soldiers such 
a spirit of rapacity, unknown to their predecessors 
that thirst of plunder — such a contempt for all the 
laws of society which cause a man, from the day he 
puts on a military uniform, to abjure all the sen- 



8£ NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

timents of humanity and justice of which he was 
so full but a moment before — which makes the choice, 
somewhat embarrassing between him who calls him- 
self our defender, and him who calls himself our 
enemy? The answer is — want — example — impunity 
of those horrible manners produced by the Revolu- 
tion, and brought to their perfection by Napoleon's 
method of war.' 

" From the moment that thousands have ts> 
struggle with want — that they are pushed forward 
upon a country which is pointed out to them as their 
storehouse, and find themselves in a condition to 
have recourse to force, they on all occasions appeal 
to force — they become ferocious brigands, because, 
as soldiers, they have been neglected both as to ne- 
cessaries and discipline : now let us take a survey 
of that mass of evils and of corruption which must 
follow from the application of this conduct to a mass 
of soldiers. It is evident, that it is from those who 
have created the necessity of the disorder, that we 
are to exact an account of the excesses which it 
carries in its train. This method is as foolish as it 
is barbarous. Besause it has succeeded in Lombardy 
and in the rich country of Austria, it is carried into 
Russia, to Poland, to Dresden — it is applied to 
four hundred thousand as well as to fifty thousand 
men — it is kept up in that country which is their 
©wn; we ruin those to whom we owe protection-, 
what has happened from this ? Two superb armies 
perish — the third expires from want in the midst of 
the most fertile provinces of France. By the 
downfal of these armies the glory and power of the 
country — its existence even hangs by a thread ; and 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 83 

whilst aspiring to the homage of the universe, we 
receive over heaps of corpses and of ruins, the 
most frightful punishment of the most horrible cor- 
ruption of the understanding and of the heart that 
ever existed. 

" This neglect of proper management, has cos 
the French army, of Russia and of Dresden three 
times the number of men more than the battles 
which they fought. From the very commencement 
of the campaign the entire army was attacked with 
a dysentery. They were in want of bread ; and 
the soldiers, thinking that they could make up for 
the deficiency by animal food, perished in thousands. 
No store of rice had been provided, and it was only 
at the end of the campaign that some was got by 
the way of Trieste. The corps of Bavarians, which 
at the opening of the campaign was twenty-five 
thousand strong, all of them fine tall fellows, was 
reduced by the end of October to two thousand 
men under arms : the remainder had perished, or 
were then incumbering the most miserable hospitals 
that ever existed. 

" God forbid that I should endeavour to injure 
any one ; to take from any one whoever he may 
be, the treasure of his reputation, the most precious 
of all treasures ! I am not writing a defamatory 
libel, I am an historian, and an historian of the 
most frightful catastrophes that the sun ever shone 
upon. History, posterity, are already seated on 
their tribunals, and are waiting for the victims which 
it belongs to Justice to summon before them. They 
have enjoyed the advantage of their actions and of 
their exploits ^ they were in hopes to escape in the 



84 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

multitude of the guilt}', and to enjoy impunity under 
the shade of a convenient obscurity. Justice, which 
never halts, will not permit them to enjoy that pro- 
tection for ever; she wills that the punishment 
should be divided between them, and those who 
have been so blind or so depraved as to employ such 
instruments, to prostitute the honour of the nation 
of which they made them the representatives, and 
the interest of those who were connected with them ; 
with men, unworthy in every respect, of those 
functions which become honourable from the very 
consideration that they are interesting to entire 
nations. 

" Now, let me ask, what agents did we make use 
of in Poland ? What kind of men did we exhibit to 
that country ? 

" Marshal Davoust had filled Poland with hor- 
ror. I have heard of detestable scenes in which lie 
acted, which excited strong prejudices against him 
und the French. It is to be regretted that a man 
who had been honoured with the highest military dig- 
nities, recommended by a degree of disinterestedness 
which does not leave the slightest stain on his for- 
tune, would have habitually assumed the most hide- 
ous forms, and have descended, too often, to a lan- 
guage unworthy that rank to which he was raised. 
It is unfortunately, but too true, that every thing 
which Marshal Davoust has attempted against the 
King, and, above ali, against the Queen of Prussia, 
enters, in more than the proportion of a full half, 
into that hatred which the Russians entertain against 
France, and those evils which they have inflicted 
on it. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. S3.. 

€ - M. Bignon was my predecessor at Warsaw. 
The duke spoke of him to me at Dresden as of a 
miracle. What was my astonishment when, instead 
of that gravity, that decorum and regard for the na- 
tional honour, of that attention to maintain a spirit 
of mutual benevolence between the two nations (which, 
in my opinion, should have composed the whole man- 
ner of life and occupation of a minister of France), 
I found in him a little gentleman only taken up with 
writing little verses, with little women, little chit- 
chat, and who in the little puns in which he com- 
posed his little dispatches, said to the duke, in a 
familiar style, when speaking of the certainty of a 
rupture between Russia and France, that " Russia 
will prime so often, present against France so often, 
that France would be forced to fire." (Brunet could 
not have expressed it more happily.) Who, in speak- 
ing of the liberty which the King of Saxony was so 
kind as to permit in the society which he admitted 
near his person, remarked, that there reigned there 
the most noisy ease (un scuis-gbie bruyant.) 

" All his correspondence is in the same tone, and 
presents a most fatiguing hotch-potch of business, 
executed with such pretensions to genius as belong to 
a wit of the lowest order. It is a collection of the 
lowest adulation of the Emperor, and of the most 
odious imputations against the Russians, of the most 
erroneous returns of the Russian force. The confi- 
dence, the boasting, the incitements which form the 
greatest part of that correspondence, do not admit a 
doubt but that M. Bignon should be considered as 
one of the fomenters of the Russian 'war. This cor- 
respondence appears clearly to have been drawn up 
with a view to that result, * 



$6 KARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

" M. Bignon had, by long continued manoeuvres, 
obliged the chief of Prince Poniatowski's staff to di- 
vorce his wife ; this caused a horrible scandal — the 
circumstances attending it were dreadful. When I 
arrived, M. Bignon wa3 appointed commissioner to 
attend on the central administration of Lithuania. 
He sent for the woman to that place ; she did the 
honours of his house, and of that of the duke. 

" At his departure I thought it my duty to give 
the duke all the details of the business, abstaining, 
at the same time, most rigorously from every kind of 
remark. The duke was not obliged to me for it, and 
continued to honour the ravisher and his prey, and 
to enable this unworthy representative of the nation 
to enjoy the enormous salary of eighty thousand 
francs till the very time of the catastrophe at Dres- 
den, in which M. Bignon was made prisoner. The 
lady abandoned to her wretched fate remained be- 
hind in Poland. 

" General Dutallis was military commandant at 
Warsaw. That officer, who was attached to the 
Staff of the prince of Neufchatel, and much employed 
by him, distinguished himself by frantic acts or ab- 
surdities, expressed in disgusting language. Having 
to provide for the wants of the army in a friendly 
country, he never spoke but of the most brutal vio- 
lences ; he was the very plague of the council, and 
always at variance with the Polish minister of war. 
One day he wrote that he would have the mattrasses 
taken away from the beds of the inhabitants of War- 
saw ; the next that he would have the cattle driven 
off, which pastured under the city walls ; at another 
time he caused, by his own private authority, a quan- 
tity of unsold forage, equal to five thousand rations, 



TO WAKSAW AND WILNA. 87 

to be burned, and that too in the house of the owner, 
under the pretext of preventing a supply of bad pro- 
visions to the troops. He was corrupted, by his 
authority, to such a degree, that he threatened the 
Baron de Bauin, the Austrian commissary at War- 
saw, with placing a centinel at his door, to keep him 
in his house. I found him one day quite vexed be- 
cause he had not caused an Austrian officer, sent as 
a courier, to be arrested, who, as he was passing 
through Warsaw, had spoken of some advantages 
obtained by the Russians. 

" I have already spoken of General Vandamme. 
What can be added to that name? 

" A general who was quartered in the country- 
house of the Countess Potocki, was in the habit of 
having his meat sent home from the shambles in that 
lady's finest chariot. When he was told that her 
very curious articles of furniture would suffer greatly 
from the practice which he followed, of rolling his 
person upon them, when booted and spurred, he an- 
swered, with that insolent grossness which arises 
from the union of a bad education and power, joined 
in one — the very worst of all alliances. 

" 1 have seen in the hands of the very same Coun- 
tess Potocki, the letters of a commissary at war, 
which were downright insolent. He stopped six 
weeks at her house on account of an illness, of which 
he afterwards died. He was not ashamed to write 
to her from the chamber which he occupied in her 
house—' Send me quilts of the finest and softest 
kind, and other articles of the best quality.' 

" The commissary-general at Warsaw was a mail 
ei the harshest and most troublesome nature that I 



88 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

ever met with. I was under the necessity of im- 
posing silence on him in a dispute which he entered 
into with the minister at war, at my house, in which 
he had forgot himself in the strongest manner. We 
passed seven months without hearing any other 
subject but of his turpitudes, which, in the position 
in which we were placed, were all in opposition to 
our interests, because they tended to cool the senti- 
ments of the people, which the interests of the cause 
in which we were engaged required to be kept warm. 

" When I arrived in Poland, I laid it down as a 
fixed rule to be on my guard against speculators, 
projects and magnificent promises; such gentlemen 
are ever ready to dispose of that which is not theirs 
to dispose of, to make promises which they have it 
not in their power to keep, and build their impor- 
tance on that credulity which by every means in their 
power they endeavour to inspire. 

<c I had politely got rid of some of those promisers. 
The Duke of Bassano had been not so prudent in this 
respect. I knew three of his favourites in Poland ; 
his choice fell on the three worst subjects in all the 
country ; discretion alone prevents me from naming 
them. 

" One day I saw a little man arrive at Wilna, de- 
corated as many of the Poles are. He presented me 
with his credentials, from the duke. They signified 
that this gentleman had given his majesty proofs of 
great zeal and ability. The letter is dated the 20th 
of July. I was recommended to support the opera- 
tions of this man with all the means in my power* 
The council of ministers, the council of confedera- 
tion, were put in requisition to assist him ; his was 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 89 

a formal mission ; he was the Emperor's commis- 
sioner in Volhinia ; every thing was to obey him; 
couriers Were attached to his legation. I was to re- 
commend this gentleman to our ambassador at 
Vienna. All this, as we see, had a most imposing 
air. Great reports were spread abroad on his ap- 
pearance in Warsaw. What was his business? The 
most ridiculous character in all Poland ; a .kind of 
adventurer without any fortune, of the meanest as- 
pect, deficient even in that species of talent which 
belongs in general to men of that stamp ; such was 
Monsieur the Count Morski. I have never heard 
scandal equal to that which was propagated through 
Warsaw on the occasion of this man's promotion ; 
in an instant I received a thousand representations 
on the subject. At a grand dinner to which I in- 
vited him, a few days after his joyeuse entree into 
Warsaw, I distinctly heard voices in my hall calling 
him punchinelle. His plans were communicated to 
me ; and I could not conceive how it happened that 
the first ten lines had not caused the duke's door to 
be shut in his face. The poor devil was not able to 
support any kind of discussion. The most distin- 
guished officers resigned their commissions that they 
might not be obliged to serve with him. This man 
was the most despised character in all Poland. He 
perplexed us at the council of ministers — he ruined 
the duchy by expences in posting and couriers. I 
caused, one day, bounds to be put to this extrava- 
gant expence. This mission died, at length, a natu- 
ral and glorious death, and the ambassador, very 
prudently, withdrew in the midst of hisses, which he 
shared in common with the author of this judicious 



00 NARRATIVE OF AN EMEASSY 

choice. Now, who was the cause of this ? Why, M. 
Bignon and M. de Bassano conjointly : one had givei} 
him to the other. M. Morski was M. Bignon's buf- 
foon at Warsaw ; at Wilna he became flatterer to 
the duke, to which art M. Bignon had given him a 
wonderful tendency, as generally happens among all 
gentlemen of this description : nothing more was ne- 
cessary, and the duke, taken in the bird-lime of the 
very gross flatteries of a man of no talents, did not 
hesitate to judge him capable, and to charge him 
with the direction of the most important affairs. So 
true is it that a man of talents, but who has a weak 
side, may become an idiot — a mere simpleton, if he 
suffer himself to be attacked on his weak side ! 

" I regularly rendered an account of the net pro- 
ceeds of M. de Morski's mission : the duke was not 
pleased with me for it, and, on his passing through 
Warsaw, would not hear one word against him, and 
assured me in the most positive tone, that M. Count 
Morski had rendered most important services. At 
length, the appearance of a Russian army, com- 
manded by General Tormassow, who invaded the 
duchy about the middle of July, put an end to any 
favourable disposition which till then remained to- 
wards France. From that moment the Poles saw 
themselves exposed to become the prey of those whom 
they considered as beaten fifteen days before ; they 
began to fear their return, and the chastisements 
which must necessarily result. All their zeal was 
then at an end. 

" Truth obliges me to declare first, that Lithua- 
nia, under the eyes of the Emperor — under the 
blessed hands of the Duke ofBassano, under his own 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 91 

immediate government, furnished not more than two 
thousand men to the active army of the Emperor, and 
that the rest of the levies, by no means numerous for 
a country containing four millions of inhabitants, 
were not completely levied and equipped at the time 
of the army's retreating. And, secondly, that Vol- 
hinia, which had been incessantly represented to me 
as capable of furnishing fifty thousand men and 
thirty thousand horses ; as presenting immense re- 
sources, as altogether ready to put themselves in 
motion, and only waiting for the signal — Volhinia 
towards which the eyes of all Warsaw were turned 
— that vast and opulent country, to my knowledge,, 
had furnished but two men. 

u Matters were arrived at that point when Prince 
Schwartzenberg entered Volhinia, that he could 
never find spies on whom he could depend, and that 
even the inhabitants had deserted their houses, and 
could not be found, wherever the army penetrated. 

" With respect to myself, I declare, that I could 
not accomplish so much as to establish a correspon- 
dence in Volhinia, though I did not spare money to 
carry it into effect. Count Morski, who had an- 
swered for this province, was not able to extract one 
line from it. 

" We may judge, from this mass of facts, what 
was the disposition of men's minds in Poland. It 
is by considering them that we can be set right in 
appreciating those circumstances which have had an 
influence in directing them. 

" I resume my narrative : it will be found con- 
nected with military events ; they cannot be sepa- 
rated. This necessarily obliges me tg examine the 



§£ NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

plan which Napoleon had formed against Russia, 
He might have had two. 

" 1st, To march on Moscow, in the hopes that 
this coup-de-main would cut off the chief resources 
of the enemy ; to burn Toula, the principal manu- 
factory for arms in Russia; to search out and 
foment discontents and discontented persons, which 
were supposed to be very numerous at Moscow, es- 
pecially as Moscow was considered the rival of Pe- 
tersburg; to force the Emperor of Russia by all 
means to sign a peace, the bases of which would be 
the cession of all the Polish provinces and the re- 
sumption of the yoke of the continental system, 
which Russia had taken the liberty to shake off, and 
also the giving up of Riga and Archangel as places 
of surety. 

" 2d, To separate the entire of the Polish pro- 
vinces from the Baltic to the Black Sea: to take post 
upon the Dwina and the Borysthenes ; to organise 
Poland behind this rampart, and to carry on the war 
with the blood of Poles (that was the Emperor's ex- 
pression), leaving a considerable French force in 
Poland, and giving the Poles a large subsidy. 

" These two notions contended for the preference, 
and succeeded each other in the head of Napoleon. 
During the winter which preceded the expedition, 
the minister of police never ceased to entertain me 
with them. On my side, I never ceased my endea- 
vours to shew him the difficulties which would follow 
— to me they appeared palpable. 

" Every enterprise of very great importance, 
where we cannot make ourselves masters of all the 
chances, is a bad enterprise; every enterprise in 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. $3 

which the failure of success is attended with a com- 
plete change in the position of him who embraces it, 
is certainly one of great temerity, and consequently 
one of the most dangerous. It is inconceivable how 
matters of such vast importance can be made to de- 
pend on perhapses. 

The French governor of a strong place in the 
course of the last winter that preceded the expedi- 
tion, sent Napoleon some documents and details re- 
lative to the disposition of the people as manifested 
in Germany, to which he received the following an- 
swer. " I asked you for authentic reports, and not 
for German pamphlets." At Dresden also during^ 
the armistice in 1813, the King of Westphalia hav- 
ing transmitted to him the information which his mi- 
nisters had collected in different courts of Germany, 
the Emperor sent him his letter back with these 
words written in the margin " impertinencies" 

" To march on Moscow, to burn Toula, to meet 
with malcontents — all this is very fine, agreeable to 
the habit which had been contracted, of going to 
dictate peace to the enemy's capital — to carry every 
thing with a mighty noise, and to search every place 
for the enemies of the government ; but who was to 
guarantee to the Emperor that all this would end the 
war with Russia? That the Emperor has no resem- 
blance to any other, or to those to which he had 
been in the habit of dictating. 

" With the latter, when a sovereign leaving his 
capital is driven to the limits of his states, how can 
he escape the cruel necessity of signing a distressing 
peace ? But how does this necessity arise in Russia? 
He who said that this empire had both space and 



P4 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

time for him, knew that country well— he had mea- 
sured it, and had assigned it a force which is exclu- 
sively its own. Napoleon treated all this as a chi- 
mera, as ideology, and whilst from one end of Eu- 
rope to the other, every one, even down to the 
lowest ranks, was tracing out this march for the 
Russians, Napoleon pretended that they could not 
bear the idea of the taking of their capital, and that 
the most complete submission would anticipate such 
a misfortune. Read every thing which the Moni- 
teur has said of Moscow the Holy, of Moscow the 
Great — of the respect of the Russians for that city ; 
all the flatterers never said any thing else. 

" The second plan was not better than the first. 
Napoleon reckoned on one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand Poles; he proposed to add fifty thousand 
French, and a large subsidy. But it was not two 
hundred thousand men which could force Russia to 
divest herself of such valuable provinces as those 
of Poland. That empire could for a very long time 
oppose very superior forces to the supposed number 
of two hundred thousand enemies. Besides the 
Dwina and Borysthenes are not barriers during the 
six months of frost common in these countries. What 
then coukl prevent the clouds of Cossacks which 
Russia has always at her disposal to penetrate in a 
hundred places through a cordon of more than four 
hundred leagues ? In such a supposition, which was 
that of the continuation of the war, the Emperor 
would have had for a long course of years to have 
come every spring to establish himself in Poland, 
and to direct the operations in person ; for the most 
cruel experience bad already taught him what fee 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 95 

was to expect from his lieutenants. He would be 
under the necessity every year of sending corps of 
fresh troops into Poland, a portion of the money of 
France would take the same route, for it is always 
in that manner that he would be obliged to end. It 
would be curious to know the amount of the money 
conveyed to Poland and Saxony during the last two 
campaigns. 

u The second plan, though less hazardous than 
the first, was not less efficacious : the first was too 
rapid in its operations, the second not sufficiently so. 
Napoleon had not calculated that when engaged 
with Russia, to conquer was nothing, but that to 
sign a peace was every thing ? that there was no way 
of forcing her to that, and that so long as that sig- 
nature was withheld, whatever the victories might be, 
that nothing was accomplished. 

" The Emperor had decided in favour of the first 
plan. It is inconsistent with his character — of that 
character which enters without distinction into all 
his transactions, and with which he does every thing, 
to attach himself to any plan which is not attended 
with some eclat, with some bustle, in which time, 
that spring of every thing, with which he is so 
little acquainted, enters as something into the 
account. 

" As soon as he threw himself into Lithuania, 
and that he saw the Russian army flying before 
him, he thought of nothing else but of pursuing it, 
interpreting the system, which was preparing his 
destruction, as a sign of terror and affright on the 
part of his enemy. Success had spoiled him to 
such a degree, that he gave it no other interpreta- 



Q6 narrative of an embassy 

tion.— The Emperor had entered Russia by Lithu-* 
.ania, the King of Westphalia by the Duchy of 
Warsaw. 

" All these forces may be considered as an army, 
the left of which was formed by the two corps 
under the Dukes of Tarentum and of Reggio, be- 
fore Riga and Potolsk. The centre by the army of 
the Emperor, the right by the King of Westphalia, 
the left by the Austrians and Saxons. 

These two corps were during the whole campaign 
before Folotzk and Riga. They lined the Dwina, 
and prevented any sortees from these points on the 
part of the enemy. 

Marshal Macdonald opposed a vigorous resist- 
ance against the repeated attempts of the Russians 
to debouch from Riga. He was never worsted in 
any rencontre, but maintained his position with 
much credit till the moment when it became neces- 
sary for him to follow the retreat of the grand army. 
The measures which the Prussians when they se- 
parted from his army were dictated by the respect 
which they bore to his personal character. Till the 
18th of October, the Duke of Reggio and Marshal 
St Cyr maintained their position near Polotsk 
against forces under Wittgenstein, much superior: 
both these generals at once increased their laurels^ 
and the glorious wounds with which they were 
covered. It was these two corps that repulsing 
the first corps of the Russian army of Moldavia, 
secured the passage of the Beresina, which without 
their successful co operation, could never have taken 
place, particularly in driving the enemy's divisions 
back that had marched from Borizou. Thougb a 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. $7 

fault in Admiral Thchitsagoff in bringing a part of 
his army into action instead of lining the shores of 
the Beresina, it was fortunate for the French, who 
had the admiral defended the Beresina, could not 
have passed it. 

" The disposition of the Russian army almost cor- 
responded with that of France. At the opening of 
the campaign, the left of that army, commanded by 
Prince Bagration, was formed on the Bog facing 
the Duchy, and in the immediate direction of 
Warsaw. 

" The army of the King of Westphalia was 
opposed to it. 

" The retrograde movement of the Grand Russian 
Army had drawn to it that of the army of the 
Prince Bagration. The Emperor, in order to pre- 
vent this re-union, had ordered Marshal Davoust to 
manoeuvre, who advanced from Wilna on Minsk 
and Bobrnisk. The King of Westphalia followed 
in the rear of this movement. When the first Polish 
corps beheld the Russians, they eould not be re- 
strained, and they inconsiderately threw themselves 
upon them, and were severely beaten in the battles 
of Romanou and of Mish. Prince Bagration ably 
escaping from Davoust, and making good his junc- 
tion after the battle off Mohilow, Davoust furious 
at seeing his prey escape him, threw the blame on 
the King of Westphalia. The Emperor, already 
irritated by the complaints which the depredations 
committed by his army had excited, determined to 
unite it with the corps of Marshal Davoust, and 
to place him under the Marshal's command. The 
Prince saw his dignity outraged in this : he was dis- 

H 



98 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

posed to recal all his troops which were in the army; 
a bickering took place between the two brothers ; 
the Kins; took the road towards his own states with 
his guards ; he passed by the way of Warsaw, where 
he caused me a considerable loss of time by his 
eternal talkativeness. He was attacked with the 
dysentery, which was thinning the army. Nothing 
more has been heard of him, with the exception of 
his flight from Cassel, and the end of his reign, 
which has done no more good for Westphalia than 
that of his brother for France. 

" By the movement of Marshal Davoust, the 
Emperor had drawn to himself the whole of the 
Polish army. They wished, and their wish seems 
to have had a reasonable foundation, that all the 
national troops, united under the national colours, 
should march in Volhinia, in a parallel direction to 
that of the army which was advancing in Lithuania. 
Their attempts were frustrated by their troops being 
called to join the Grand Army, and by their dis- 
persion through all the corps of that army on all 
points of the line. This dispersion rendered the 
administration of them impracticable, and nobody 
knew where to find them. 

The Saxon corps, which formed the extreme rear, 
had been placed under the command of General 
Regnier, who was substituted on account of the 
dismissal of General Vandamme. This corps was 
stationed in the environs of Slonim. The Austrians 
marched on Mohilow. 

" From this disposition it may be seen that Na- 
poleon, faithful to his two grand principles, which 
are to draw every thing to himself, and never to 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 99 

look to what is behind or on the side of him, had 
drawn all the troops into his centre of the action, 
without calculating on the danger of leaving his right 
flank and his rear entirely uncovered. By those 
means it happened that while he was marching on 
Smolensk and Moscow, an enemy might march on 
Warsaw, on Posen, and interpose between him 
and France. Let any one take the map in his hand, 
and judge for himself. Now let us see precisely 
what was preparing, and what happened in the 
manner which I am about to relate : 

" Whilst the Emperor was running straight for- 
ward, a terrible storm was collecting in Volhinia, on 
the borders of the Duchy. 

" The Russian General Tormazow was collecting 
an army in this province : this army could do three 
things ; 

" 1. March through the interior of Volhinia, in 
order to join the Grand Army in Russia ; 

" 2. Place itself in the Emperor's rear, by re- 
ascending the Bog, and taking post on the Niemen ; 

" 3. Or throw itself on the Duchy, of Warsaw, 

" It chose to adopt the second plan, confining 
itself just to touch upon the Duchy. 

" Here commenced a new order of things, such 
as I little suspected, and the tardy knowledge of 
which made me form a resolution that I would never 
have any thing more to do with the gentlemen with 
whom I unfortunately found myself connected. I 
discovered that there was no possibility of my being 
able to serve those who employed me; that the surest 
way of displeasing them was by giving them infor- 
mation and enlightening them; and that the only 

H 2 



100 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

way in which I could obtain a hearing from them 
was, to tell them, not matters of fact, and what 
existed, but that which, agreeably to their illusions 
and convenience, they wished to find existing. This 
character, peculiar to those spoiled children of for- 
tune, was never changed, even for one day during 
all the time that I had any thing to do with them. 
It was Napoleon himself, who, when at the height 
of his power — in the very centre of all the enjoys 
inents which vanity could produce, who created 
that species of character which is naturally repug- 
nant to all truth, and which he has found so fatal. 
All the contemptible apes which surrounded him did 
riot fail to imitate him, and it was happily disco* 
yered that all his government was spoiled, because 
the master himself was so. — Deplorable effect of 
the despotism of the one and the meanness of the 
others ! Now how is it possible that a man, who 
listens only to his conscience, who sees only with 
his own eyes, who only acts agreeably to his notion 
of duty, can maintain a proper understanding with 
people who have inverted every thing? This is pre- 
cisely what happened to me from that date till the 
time of my departure from Poland. 

" I saw the army of General Tormassow form- 
ing ; I gave information of this ; I furnished reports 
which every thing convinced me to be correct. The 
Duke disputed every point, made subtractions as 
his fancy directed, and an army which I estimated 
at forty thousand men, he made to consist of twelve 
thousand. General Tormassow entered the Duchy 
from the 16th to the 18th of July. It is easy to 
conceive what a sensation that must have produced 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 101 

there. In an instant all on the right bank of the 
river passed over to the left : fugitives were arriving 
from all sides; consternation reached Warsaw. — 
Vengeance was feared on the part of the Russians, 
who, as it was reported, looked upon this city as 
the very focus of all their calamities : there was 
nothing now heard but of flying before those who 
only a few days before were spoken of as about to 
make their submission — the ordinary effect of pre- 
sumption. This change of scene completed that of 
public opinion — it never rose again. 

" The people, strangers as they always are to 
political movements, the expences of which they 
more frequently pay than they gather the fruits — 
the people were talking in a high strain of stopping 
the Ambassador, the Council of Confederation, and 
all the Grandees, who, they said, were the authors 
of all these troubles, and of all the provocations 
which the Russians had received. This would have 
undoubtedly happened had the Russians made their 
appearance. 

" There was not in the Duchy at that time twelve 
hundred men of disposable troops, nor were there 
four hundred in Warsaw; nevertheless the Duke 
wrote to me under the date of the 30th of July : — 
' His Majesty has foreseen the offensive movement 
of the Russians.' We shall see how. 

" General Regnier was, as has been said before, 
left in the command of the last body of troops of 
the French rear. His corps amounted to sixteen or 
eighteen thousand men, Saxons and Poles. This 
force appeared to be sufficient according to the false 
idea which it pleased some men to form of the army 



102 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

of General Tormassow. I had given a detailed ac- 
count of this force, but to no purpose ; it was ob- 
stinately determined to reject my advice, and to 
substitute calculations absolutely fantastical. Mat- 
ters went so far that on the 25th of July, the Duke 
wrote to me — ' The Russians can have no more than 
a small number of indifferent troops in the position 
in which they now are, which are exposed as a mere 
forlorn hope : every thing would be fair against the 
rabble zvhich Tormassow has collected' However 
this same rabble {canaille) had taken the liberty of 
carrying off the advanced guard of General Regnier; 
which were all made prisoners in the little town of 
Kobryn, on the very day that the Duke wrote to me 
in such polite terms. 

" From that I distinctly saw, that as I addressed 
myself to men who were intentionally deaf and 
blind, that we were lost without resource : the army 
of General Tormassow then marched into Lithuania 
by the route of Brescz. That of General Regnier 
was joined by the army of Prince Schwartzenberg, 
and the two armies thus united, continued to act 
conjointly to the end of the campaign. They were 
thus the means of preserving the Duchy. 

" The Duke's incredulity was not my only evil 
as I was circumstanced; an insolence of a peculiar 
nature in which he indulged himself, and to which 
I was very sensible, must be added. The conster- 
nation at the approach of the Russians was extreme 
at Warsaw; the people were taken by surprise, 
without any means of defence. The Council knew 
this better, and sooner too than the public, but still 
maintained a g°°d countenance ; such symptoms of 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 103 

confidence were shewn, that not even one packet was 
displaced in all the town ; as to myself, personally, 
I had not even packed up a single paper, nor had I 
received one person less at my table. However, the 
Council foreseeing the approaching danger, had taken 
measures to secure a retreat, to save the government 
property, to establish a provisioal government during 
its absence, and to disarm the enemy by submis- 
sions : all this had been settled by an interior eco- 
nomy without communicating any part of the plan 
to the public. These measures resemble those which 
generally take place in similar cases. I gave an 
account of them ; the following is the answer which 
a certain person thought he might take the liberty of 
sending : ' I shall not add another word as to the 
project of the retreat of the embassy, of the Minis- 
ters and of the Authorities, which appears to have 
been suggested by a sentiment which has been 
always known to inspire bad counsels.' This judi- 
cious remonstrance was seasoned with reflections on 
the good effect which the example of courage, given 
by the Archbishop might produce. This pleasantry 
indulged towards a man whose profession prevented 
him from returning that answer which first presents 
itself to the mind, was most assuredly ill placed, and 
appeared excessively ridiculous in a man who, at 
the time of the retreat from Wilna and from Leipsic, 
shewed himself as sensible as any man of the value 
of diligence timely applied. 

" But to be the butt of the Duke's pleasantries, 
with respect to the most convenient personal mea- 
sures, was not enough. I was to endure his irony 
in return for the most real services. 



104 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

<c On the news of the invasion of the Duchy, the 
Emperor prescribed several measures, more or less 
adapted to circumstances. He desired me, amongst 
other things, to throw some thousands of men and 
some cannon upon the rear of the enemy in Volhinia; 
it required no share of supernatural powers to per- 
ceive this, which was already accomplished by the 
almost magical creation of the division of Korinski ; 
I informed the Duke of it in a dispatch, in which 
every action which I performed breathed zeal, and 
every expression which I made use of breathed 
respect for the service of the Sovereign, as is our 
bounden duty at all times. He answered me, on 
the SOth of July, in the following words ; ' You tell 
me that the dispositions which I requested you to 
make, were previously adopted; his Majesty will 
be very glad to find that you succeeded in divining 
his intentions.' See to what lengths the spirit of 
servility had led the minds of some ! it was not even 
allowed to anticipate the thoughts of the Prince, 
in order to serve him. Every thing must proceed 
and emanate from him ; better let all things perish, 
rather than not to leave him the honour of having 
created every thing. Thus it happened that when 
the Russians were marching at their ease through 
the Duchy, the Duke wrote to me on the 23d of 
July, that his Majesty had foreseen the offensive 
movements of the Russians — the truth is, we had 
not a man, and the enemy were at our gates. 

*' I perceived from that moment that my corres- 
pondence was displeasing, and that it was not writ- 
ten in the sense which was liked. My secretaries 
gf embassy more perfectly broken in the wawgG 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 105 

(riding-school) of our foreign relations than what I 
was, more pliant, and besides, being great admirers 
of the political juggling used by our cabinet, told 
me frequently that I would never succeed ; that 
truth was not liked ; that nice, pretty little bulletins, 
well-filled with anecdotes, even scandalous ; that a 
few precious insurrections very ingeniously contriv- 
ed, would give quite a different idea of my talents 
than these mournful truths, which were too strong 
to be relished. It was in vain for them to point out 
that the road of advancement was closed against me, 
and even that of dotations ; to propose for my model, 
the correspondence of M. Bignon, who, in his im- 
portant mission to the army, had, without even the 
shadow of political interest, found out the secret of 
keeping up a correspence of such high importance, 
which charmed at once both the duke and the Em- 
peror, and had placed its author in the rank of the 
first ministerial correspondent, and almost that of 
the first diplomatist of France : not finding the same 
resources of mind as they, I remained obstinate in 
my own opinion, and firm to unfortunate truth, for 
which we should do so much the more, as she is 
destined to do less for us. 

" I proceed to give an account how affairs were 
managed. The loss of horses which the army had 
experienced, above all, the want of oats caused re- 
course to be had to the Duchy. A courier arrived 
one day from Wilna in great haste, who was the 
bearer of an order to form, forthwith, considerable 
magazines of bread and of meat at Modlin, of grain 
at a place called Meretz, and to purchase three 
thousand horses \ money was every where promised 



106" NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

for every thing. From the eagerness with which 
this demand was made — from the rapidity with 
which letters, more and more pressing, succeeded 
each other, it might be thought that the destiny of the 
world depended on that supply. Immediately all 
was bustle in the duchy. Not a crown arrives : 
contracts were made but with infinite trouble : letters 
addressed to the intendant general on the 24th of 
July, were answered on the 10th of September : in 
the mean time the army had marched, other arrange- 
ments had taken place ; and one morning we were 
informed that neither our oats or horses were any 
longer wanted. 

" This is the proper place to speak of the Aus- 
trian army. I have seen prejudices respecting them 
to prevail in Poland, which justice obliges me to en- 
deavour to dissipate in this book, as I have even 
endeavoured to do in the course of my embassy. 
The Poles have not always judged fairly on this 
head : they considered Austria as but too happy 
when labouring on their business, making no ac- 
count whatever of the dangers to which the actual 
co-operation might expose Austria on a future day, 
with regard to Gallicia. It was certainly a very 
remarkable sight to see Austria labouring to aggran- 
dize Poland, which already partly formed from her 
spoils, was still destined to cost her so dear. 

" It was curious to hear the tone in which certain 
Frenchmen spoke on this affair, and in what terms 
they expressed themselves upon that subject, which 
was entitled to their greatest respect. By the treaty 
of alliance Austria was to furnish thirty thousand 
men, under a commander to be named by himself. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 107 

The choice had fallen on Prince Schwartzenberg : 
surely no chief could give us more guarantees. That 
army formed on the frontiers of Poland. It con- 
sisted of the best troops of that country, completely 
equipped, and provided with every thing. It ad- 
vanced into Lithuania at the desire of the Emperor, 
and had already reached Ighumen, when it was re- 
called by the invasion of General Tormassow : It 
afterwards joined the Saxon corps, from which it did 
not separate. — They repulsed the Russians in Vol- 
hinia, and gained in the most brilliant manner the 
battle of Podubrie on the J 2th of August, and main- 
tained their ground againft the enemy till the arri- 
val of the Russian army of Moldavia. This army 
saved the duchy twice, and served, independantly of 
their private opinions, with a degree of ability and 
perseverance, which nothing could overcome nor 
shake, and its worthy chief directed and supported 
its spirit with that honour which forms so distin- 
guished a feature in his noble character. During 
seven months that I was in contact with that army, 
I could not perceive any thing which turned it in 
the smallest degree aside from the most perfect line 
of fidelity to those obligations which their cabinet 
had contracted. This army did not spare itself in 
any manner, or upon any occasion ; it fought for 
Poland as if it had been for Austria herself. 

" I took particular care to have the wants of this 
army provided for, and its generals seemed to ap^ 
predate my intentions. 

" One of the sources of the Emperor's hopes, 
when he attacked Russia, was the war which still 
subsisted between that country and Turkey. Strong 



108 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

expectations were also formed of adding a Swedish 
war, as Finland was pointed out to Sweden as an 
object for her to recover. It was from a firm reli- 
ance on these two auxiliaries that we proposed to 
march against that powerful empire. All the grand 
political measures of the times corresponded with 
that conception, which could not be exalted too 
highly. The idea was, however, as chimerical as 
some of those which spring from the brain of Na- 
poleon. — He had formed for himself, in his usual 
way, an imaginary Turkey, an imaginary Sweden ; 
he had furnished these two governments with his 
own optics and his own passions. Because he him- 
self could not endure repose, he had imagined that 
the Turks, the most inert of all nations, who never 
attack, and who feel much pain in coming to a re- 
solution to stand on the defensive, would continue 
the war against Russia, which was offering to strip 
herself of her conquests in their favour. Traces of 
this expectation are found in the guarantee of the 
integrity of the Ottoman empire, inserted without 
anv demand to that effect from the Porte, in the 
treaty with Austria. Because that for one hundred 
years back France has not ceased to incite Sweden 
against Russia, by pointing out Finland always as 
the principal political object. — Napoleon firmly be- 
lieved that it was impossible that a more enlightened 
opinion on political subjects could be formed in 
Sweden — an opinion which might cause Sweden sin- 
cerely to renounce the possession of that country as 
being a perpetual object of dispute between them 
and a power which was much their superior in force, 
pot to make it a desirable object to endeavour to 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 109 

extinguish every spark of difference, and to avoid all 
those points of contact which, during the course of 
a century, had produced such a succession of broils 
between them, and had cost Sweden so dear. But 
to reason thus with Napoleon, would be to expose 
oneself to all his anathemas. ^ 

" This latter policy had, however prevailed., and 
Sweden had begun to connect herself with Russia; 
Turkey had made peace ; it w 7 as in vain to furnish 
the Emperor with proofs of this ; this deranged him, 
and was incompatible with his ideas — there was no 
way of making him understand it. An aide-de camp 
who had been sent by his general to him at Smolen- 
sko, having insisted on the existence of a treaty, the 
Emperor silenced him, by saying, ' You must be 
aware that I ought to know these things better than 
you.' It was in the very same manner that at Dres- 
den he obstinately opposed every proof of any 
change having taken place in the politics of the 
Rhenish confederation : but quite different when he 
was to be convinced that the army of Moldavia was 
about to be united to that of Volhinia, and that 
their junction would form a mass of force which 
might greatly annoy the rear of his army. I shall 
not recount the number of battles which I had to 
maintain against him, against the Duke of Bassano, 
against the French and Polish generals, against my 
own secretaries of embassy, in order to make them 
understand that they were about to have a powerful 
army opposed to them. One must have seen them 
returning to the charge in a hundred different ways, 
for the purpose of extenuating, explaining, comment- 
ing on every article of intelligence, in order that 



HO NARRATIVE OF Atf EMBASSY 

they might enjoy the privilege of reposing on thes® 
pillows, which variety, presumption, and the fear of 
giving up their convenient illusions, the habit of 
listening only to themselves, and of despising others-, 
substituted every day in the brains of men led astray 
by so many delirious impulses. I do not think any 
punishment can equal that which I experienced for 
the two months that the struggle continued. 

" On the 15th of August, in the midst of a fete 
which the King of Saxony was giving on the occa- 
sion of the Emperor's birth-day, I received the in- 
telligence of the army of Moldavia having wheeled 
round, and being then in full march against us. I 
left the table forthwith, and dispatched a courier 
with the information. I let no opportunity pass 
without making a return of its force. The evidence 
which my calculations afforded, struck every one 
with despair. Will it be believed that when the 
combat was still maintained on the 8th of October, 
that on that day, when the duke was entirely over- 
come, and not having a word to say, he wrote to me, 
as if it were, to get rid of my unfortunate preposses- 
sions : * I cannot do better than transmit your dis- 
patch of the 5th to his Majesty ; lie does not expect 
such results. 9 

u After this let any man conceive in what manner 
business was to be transacted with gentlemen of such 
a description, and how it was possible that every 
thing in which they were concerned was not on the 
brink of ruin. Let him also conceive, if he can, 
what corruption was required to bring men to this 
point, who, in other respects, are sufficiently clear- 
headed ; for it is evident from this, that they are 



TO WARSAW AND WILXA. Ill 

not sincere, or consistent with themselves, and that 
servility alone obscured that penetration and intel- 
ligence which we cannot help allowing them to pos- 
sess on other occasions. However these epithets 
enlightened, ( eclair e) and intelligence (lumieres), do 
not equally belong to them all. I except the mili- 
tary characters, but only for the following reasons : 
they certainly know their trade, to march, attack, 
choose their ground, manoeuvre before an enemy ; 
I suppose that every thing of this kind, which they 
do, is for the best. But to judge respecting the 
general management and view of affairs, of the pro- 
bability of even military events, into which any mor- 
tal of political consideration enters, there the thread 
slips through their fingers: there they are run 
a-ground. I was tormented for six months with 
the false reasonings of military men, whom, in other 
respects, I honoured ; it was my curse. 

" During two months they were proving to me 
that the Russians could not avoid coming to general 
engagements ; as able logicians as those of the 
Moniteur, they one day raised the Russian force to 
colossal magnitude, the next reduced it to a pigmy 
stature. When the army of Moldavia appeared, 
the place was no longer tenable. I remember a 
Polish general, of great estimation among his country- 
men, who, when dining with me, at the time when that 
army, after having disturbed the duchy very much, was 
crossing the frontiers of Lithuania, asked me, before 
forty persons, what I thought to be the direction 
which it was taking, and on my answering that Lithu- 
ania was most assuredly its object, he commenced 
1 



11& NARRATIVE OF AX EMBASSY 

a warm and even an angry dissertation, to prove that 
it was returning to Voihinia, much better would it 
have been if it had not departed from it. They at 
Warsaw denominated this zeal, and regarded all 
those as luke-warm in the cause, who would not 
give themselves up to such illusions. Besides, they 
were cherished by the first military characters (Cory- 
phies) among the French. The duke frequently sig- 
nified to me, as well as General Dutaillis, (the cor- 
respondent of the Prince of Neufchatel,) that the 
opinion of that prince was, that the army of Molda- 
via was endeavouring to form a junction with the 
grand Russian army, in the interior of Russia ; such 
is the plain meaning of his dispatches of the £lstof 
September, and of the 18th of October. In the 
first he says, f It is very difficult for the Russians 
to remain in Voihinia, after the great events which 
have taken place in the heart of Russia. The Rus- 
sian government , which has need of all its forces to 
defend itself in the interior, cannot suffer a corps to 
remain so long a time, and at such a great distance 
from its grand army' 

" That of the 1 8th of October says, ' The reports 
from the Russian army, gives us reason to think 
that it is induced to below fifty thousand men, and 
that ..it finds itself in a very had condition : the 
arrival of the army of Moldavia is impatiently ev~. 
peeled. 1 

" While the prince and the duke were thus con- 
tending with each other in mutual deception, that 
army was making forced marches on the Emperor's 
rear, in order to shut him up in Russia. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 113 

" From these details one may judge what was my 
situation at Warsaw. That situation was aggravated 
from many causes : 

" 1. The conflicts on the subject of jurisdiction 
between the council of ministers and that of the 
confederation. 

" The council of confederation was hardly formed, 
when it wished to fly with its own wings, and to 
taste of power — the fruit of that accursed tree, to 
which every man wishes to stretch his hand as soon 
as he can reach it. The council was strongly im- 
pressed with the idea of its own importance. A 
secondary part would by no means satisfy it : to hear 
and receive petitions every day, and receive civic 
oaths, appeared a trifle to it, in comparison to those 
functions which the ancient Polish confederations 
enjoyed, before which all other powers disappeared, 
I was besieged with complaints about the idleness 
and inferiority of the part which it was acting. The 
marshal of the confederation frequently came to lay 
his complaints before me. On a hundred different 
occasions other members of the council endeavoured 
to engage me on this subject. 

" The council of ministers on their part acted 
most vigorously on the defensive. I was convinced 
of the justice of its rights ; I applied myself to make 
the complainants understand the difference between 
ancient and modern times; the suspension of the 
ancient Polish forms, which could not take place in 
the actual state of the country ; the necessity which 
existed of considering the council as the means of 
arriving at the order which it was desirable to esta- 
blish; the little opportunity there was from th«. 

i 



114 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

momentary choice which had been made to raise 
their pretentions ; the necessity of supporting the 
action of the government in moments of such great 
difficulty ; in a word, the impossibility of persuading 
the Emperor and the King of Saxony, the one, that 
by creating the council he must have intended the 
abdication of the King of Saxony, the other, that he 
could not do better than abdicate in order to make 
room for them. The milder demands of sharing 
the power did not impose on me : I knew their ten- 
dency and effects. Most likely I did not succeed 
in persuading, but I succeeded in something much 
more important, namely, to avoid all edat y and to 
prevent all conflict between the flags opposed to 
each other until both were dispersed. 

" 2. The continual encreasing distress of the 
duchy. Six weeks continued rain menaced the 
crops, had swelled up all the rivers, and caused 
dreadful ravages. Many articles useful in war be- 
longing to the duchy had perished ; the imposts had 
decreased, and wants increased. The more troops 
came, the more were the ravages extended ; they 
must be supported, sick or well, equipped and prcn 
vided with every thing. Warsaw was a magazine 
and a general hospital, the real place of arms of 
Poland, as Paris has been latterly of France. The 
daily distributions were raised from twenty-five to 
forty-six thousand rations, when the division of 
General Durette arrived at Warsaw. Never less 
than five thousand rations of forage were delivered, 
without reckoning six hundred horses in the town. 
Such great pillage it was found difficult to repress 



TO WARSAW AND WlLNA. 115 

among troops of ten different nations, which de- 
manded, exacted, and took every thing. 

" During this time the devastations executed by 
the soldiers were proceeding. We were at the end 
of our patience and of our means; money failed 
altogether. From the extent of misery, those sub- 
ject to contribution set all restraint at defiance, as 
always happens in such cases. We imagined that 
we might exact twenty- one millions of taxes of the 
arrears of 1810 and 1811, by taking them in pro- 
visions and necessaries. This is what maintained 
the troops during the time of their sojourning in, and 
in passing through the duchy : the people were re- 
lieved and satisfied, and the army supported ; I 
never heard one complaint against the measure. 
With a little more economy in the manner of expen- 
diture it would have been perfect. 

" 3. The Emperor, in announcing to me my mis- 
sion to Warsaw, had informed me that it would be 
necessary to support a great establishment. It has 
been seen, that to keep up that immense establish- 
ment, in a country dearer than Paris, the moderate 
sum of one hundred and forty thousand francs had 
been assigned me ; but that is the Emperor's way ; 
he sets out in the most magnificent manner, but 
when payment is the word, he descends from his 
flight. The Revolution having stripped me of my 
patrimonial estate, and of my first church prefer- 
ments, the Emperor, who has given away so boun- 
tifully, never having thought of informing himself 
whether I had a family/or whether I had any wants, 
and certainly never having learned it from me, (the 

I 2 



1 16 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

livings of modern ecclesiastics scarcely supplying 
the first necessaries,) it may be easily seen that I 
could not do without the salary attached to my situa- 
tion. This was the more necessary, because in 
France the practice of the foreign office is, to bur- 
den diplomatic agents with all those advances which 
are made on them by different parts of the service ; 
such for instance as couriers, and missions of spies, 
&c. I had even got to such lengths as to draw on 
Paris, in bills of exchange, to the amount of 80,000 
francs. I requested permission of the duke, three 
times over, to open a credit in Warsaw, but could 
not force an answer from him. I wished to do it 
on his passing through Warsaw ; he answered me 
like a man roused from a deep sleep. W 7 hen the 
accounts were looked for, they were not to be 
found : to so great a degree did irregularity prevail 
with him. Eight days were spent in searching after 
them among all the persons who were employed. It 
was only in the month of February following that 
my dinner of the 1st of September was paid for, and 
my bills settled. The Emperor passed through 
Smolensk on the 1 8th of August. I cannot express 
with what anxiety I waited his resolution. So long 
as he did not pass beyond the Dwina, he appeared 
to me as attached to a known soil upon which one 
ittight set his foot, without fear of sinking ; beyond 
appeared to be a sea without banks. This was a 
continual subject of my conversations with M. An- 
dri, the only person from whom I never could con- 
ceal any thing. I very much wanted a person with 
whom I might share the foolish joys and foolish 
confidence with which I was surrounded. I have 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 117 

said as much, and that was repeated which did not 
at all serve me. One must have seen what airs 
these little political bird organs, my secretaries of 
embassy played from the words of my mournful 
prognostics, the sound of which was heard as far as 
Wilna, and which did not increase the number of 
my friends. 

" I was told by a very intelligent general officer, 
then aide-de-camp to the King of Naples, that or- 
ders were given to go into winter-quarters at Smo- 
lensk; but the Emperor having reconnoitered the 
ground upon which the battle of Volentino had been 
fought, and the lofty heights which had been carried 
with so much bravery by General Gudin's divisions, 
could no longer contain himself, but exclaimed, 
■ With such troops, one might go to the end of the 
world — to Moscow !' Thus the fate of men and 
empires is frequently connected with mere trifles. 
The battle of Moskwa at length took place. The 
duke enclosed me the letter which the Prince of 
Neufchatel had written to him the evening before, in 
presence of the enemy : joy and hopes shone forth 
in it in a most conspicuous manner : c The enemy 
holds out,' says the prince ; ' We are about to finish 
the business : to morrow will be one of the grandest 
epochs in history.' Good man ! who made the fate 
of an empire as long and as large as Russia, depend 
on the fate of a single battle ! ! !" 

H The proclamation of the emperor to his army, 
in the form of an order of the day, is in the same 
tone : it announces the conquest of peace and of 
winter quarters. On the news of this victory, every 
head in Warsaw became giddy with joy : the object 



118 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

was supposed to be attained. The entry into Mos- 
cow completed the charm : but what did all this 
come to, when, from the most manly resolution, 
which a people ever formed of themselves, the grand 
prey was rescued from the conqueror. All these 
mad joys vanished with the smoke of that terrible 
conflagration. 

" I confess that this event produced in me the 
strongest sensation which I ever felt. In vain have 
revolutionary scenes been repeated and prolonged ; 
they never succeeded in hardening me against the 
calamities which we have witnessed. It was to no 
purpose that I beheld men consoling themselves 
over such evils with certain suitable expressions of 
sensibility, in the midst of the most abundant enjoy- 
ments : as for me, I had preserved a soul and feel- 
ings, and the greater the evils are, the greater are my 
sufferings. Whoever he may be that takes offence 
at this, I cannot help it, for most assuredly I shall 
never change. This weakness produced the follow- 
ing letter from the duke against me — from that man 
whose heart is represented to be the sanctuary of all 
the soft and amiable affections: — 'I am informed 
that you have been struck with the burning of Mos- 
cow, and that you have suffered the impression 
which that event made upon you to be noticed, when 
your part was rather to represent it under that 
point of view, which was proper to excite enthu- 
siasm.' — Dispatch of the 4th of October. 

" I must acknowledge that I merited this correction 
so much the more, as it proved the discernment of the? 
duke, that this foolish sensibility affected in a greater- 
degree, the heroic hardness of heart, with which I 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 119 

found all bosoms furnished, against all the attack^ 
which that catastrophe might cause them to expe- 
rience. I know not to what impulse I am to ascribe 
it ; but I cannot help saying (to the shame of that 
period of crimes and egotism), that I never found 
the least feeling with respect to that event in all that 
surrounded me, or in all that I saw at Warsaw. The 
political face of that frightful event was only seen. — 
What do I say ? glanced at, and that only for a few 
moments, for the suite of pleasures and manner of 
living never stopped even for a moment. I was in- 
dignant at this, I said so ; I trembled with horror, 
when I heard a certain person proclaiming publicly, 
that Petersburgh and Berlin should share the same 
fate, and that he would willingly be a candidate for 
the honour of lighting up the flame with his own 
hand. He may, since that time, have been able to 
perceive (by the manner in which I have treated 
him), the effect which these horrible words had on 
me. 

" My mind was distracted with investigating how 
it was possible that men, who were known to be good 
fathers, good brothers, faithful and delicate in their 
notions of friendship, could thus abjure the senti- 
ments of nature, which they obeyed with pleasure 
in every other duty of life : how politics could si- 
lence the natural affections to that degree, that at 
the moment when a people has any difference with 
another, from that instant all the characters of hu- 
manity common to both, must necessarily disappear, 
and be utterly effaced. I am much deceived if this 
problem be no* resolved by tracing it up to despo- 
tism, and to that want of feeling which it produces, 



120 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

and which, united, have brought about such a change 
in the ideas of men as must of course have followed 
from the scenes of the Revolution, — from the con- 
duct of the revolutionary government, particularly 
that of Napoleon ; from which it has resulted that 
men are no longer in the habit of considering (as 
was formerly done), politics as formed for society, 
but society for the political system. — Can every 
thing which has taken place for these twenty-five 
years past have any other meaning ; and have not 
the minds of all been formed and hent under the 
yoke of these horrible principles ? 

" When the Emperor was burying himself in the 
heart of Russia, the Russian army was issuing forth 
from Volhinia, and was putting itself in motion for 
the purpose of accomplishing the project so often 
announced, of cutting off the rear of the army of the 
Emperor, and that on the very day of his entering 
into Moscow. It was a very striking spectacle, and 
at the same time very contrary to the ideas which 
had hitherto regulated military movements, to see 
an army advancing in a vast open country, at the 
same time leaving a powerful hostile force far in 
the rear, without sufficient means to stop its progress. 
The Emperor publicly boasted* that he himself was 
the only general in Europe, who understood the art 
of carrying on war on a grand scale. The late cam- 
paigns must subtract considerably from his preten- 
tions to this exclusive talent. We have seen him 
constantly turned — enveloped : gaining battles, and 
losing armies and campaigns, as if armies and battles 
were any thing else than the very means of assuring 
the success of campaigns. 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA, 121 

" The army of Volhinia amounted to sixty-six 
thousand men ; that of the Prince of Schwartzen- 
berg did not exceed thirty-six thousand. This dis- 
proportion, however, did not prevent the duke from 
writing to me on the 4th of October: ' Prince 
Schwartzenberg has, let some say what they please, 
a sufficient force to maintain himself against the 
enemy.' This general, whose information was bet- 
ter than that of the duke, immediately commenced 
his retreat, which it was very incumbent on him to 
do. However, the duke wrote to me on the 29th of 
September : ' Prince Schwartzenberg is placing him- 
self behind Turia ; this movement is nothing more 
than a manoeuvre ; and is by no means to be con- 
sidered as a retreat.' 

" This circumstance impelled me to examine into 
the true meaning of these legerdemain contrivances. 
Upon searching into them, I discovered that the 
duke, not content with deceiving strangers, endea- 
voured also to deceive his own agents ; for what 
other name can we give to such deceptions ? I pre- 
sumed so far as to flatter myself that the duke did 
not hope to persuade me that the retreat of an in- 
ferior army before a vastly superior force, could be 
confined to a voluntary manoeuvre, altogether inde- 
pendent of the impulse given to it by the movement 
of the enemy : but he wished to deceive, and he com- 
plied, at the same time, and perhaps without clearly 
perceiving it, with the habits of his own mind, and 
the wants of his situation. The retrogade movement 
continuing, the duchy was invaded, and the Cos- 
sacks penetrated even to the very gates of Warsaw : 
for a, few days an universal flight prevailed. Thi§ 



122 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

was the moment which the duke took to write to me, 
under date of the 2d of October : ' The retrograde 
movement of Prince Schwartzenberg, most undoubt- 
edly, is not success, but it by no means leads to any 
real danger.' Under date of the 4th of October, 
c The retrograde movement of Prince Schwartzen- 
berg may, perhaps, be nothing but a manoeuvre, for 
the purpose of drawing the Russians into a snare, 
and of taking all advantages over them.' 

" One can easily conceive all that I had to suffer 
in reading such dispatches. Although it was pre- 
scribed to me to speak in that sense, I could never 
bring myself to it. I confined myself to allowing 
every man to speak for himself every thing he pleased 
to say, not giving any one to suppose that what was 
said had the sanction of my personal authority, which 
could not be given to assertions equally repugnant 
to truth and common sense. It was upon this oc- 
casion, that I had an opportunity of discovering two 
things, very important with respect to business, 
namely, — The influence of the trade on such as 
merely belong to the trade, and the very little fruit 
which is derived from the practice of political jug- 
glery. My secretaries of embassy did not accustom 
themselves to the practice of my stoical sincerity. 
They took it into their heads that lying made a part 
of the character which I was to play, to impose and 
to deceive ; they decorated this vile practice with 
all the names received in the vocabulary of the 
trade. They did more : they put them into circula- 
tion, and went about filling the city with accounts of 
victories which received their birth and death on thq 
same day. What happened from this? Is it the 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 123 

secretaries of the embassy who say so, or the ambas- 
sador himself? was the usual expression. If the 
former, give no credit to it; if the latter, we will 
believe it. One day I heard a lady, who holds the 

first rank in society, say, ' Mr. has announced 

to me a victory which has not taken place ; I will, 
therefore, never believe him again in any thing/ 
Worthy reward for all his low juggling tricks, still 
more absurd from the circumstance of the means 
of detecting them offering themselves on every side ! 

" Very often, in the dispatches, which, agreeably 
to my orders, I read to the council of ministers, 
corps were said to be marching which never existed, 
such as were expected were swelled up as high as 
they pleased : in short, I had to give publicity to a 
long unbroken roll of the most clumsy and disgust- 
ing falsehoods that ever were invented. One day as I 
was reading, to my great vexation, to the council, 
one of these dispatches, which mentioned the ar- 
rival of a corps which had taken time enough to 
make the tour of Europe, from the time that it had 
been first announced, a general laugh burst forth, 
a cruel merriment of the inconvenience attached to 
the part of reciter of the Duke of Bassano's asser- 
tions. 

" The invasion of the duchy by the Russians, 
gave place to some singular scenes at Warsaw. 
It was then that the absurd violence of General 
Dutaillis" character was displayed in all its extent 
This invasion was effected under the orders of Gene- 
ral Czernicheff, (whom we all knew at Paris) at the 
head of three thousand Cossacks. His object was 
to destroy the magazines in the duchy, while in the. 



124 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

mean time the army was defiling in Lithuania. That 
army was known to be on its march ; Warsaw might 
well be considered as its object ; it is impossible to 
see clearly behind that curtain which the Cossacks 
form in the van, and on the wings of the Russian 
armies. Terror was then at the height in Warsaw : 
every thing was prepared for a departure, which, 
this time at least, appeared to be indispensible. As 
for my private opinion, I never entertained the sup- 
position that Warsaw itself would be invaded, as I 
believed that the Russian army was destined to strike 
a more deadly blow, namely, that of cutting off the 
retreat of the French army. At the sight of the 
enemy, General Dutaillis dreamed of defending an 
immense town, open on every part, and for this 
purpose, he thought of making use of from fifteen 
to eighteen hundred dismounted horsemen, who 
happened to be at Warsaw. As they were in want 
of horses, he set about rumaging the whole town, 
putting all the horses in requisition, and the better 
to insure success in this grand measure, he caused 
the gates to be shut for three days, a plan which 
prevented nobody from leaving the town, by means 
of the breaches, from the levelling the ground on that 
part of the town which is not situated on the Vis- 
tula. After three days of imprisonment and vexa- 
tions, he was enabled to procure forty-two horses 
proper for cavalry : but there was no such things as 
bridles, saddles, orboots. Such a sorry remount made 
no amends for the discontent and exasperation which 
the violence of the measure had excited in the minds 
of all men, and the still greater violence with which 
the measure itself was executed; which always 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 12$ 

happens in every case where the form and manner of 
doing a thing are more regarded than the substance, 
and gives the finishing stroke by spoiling all. The 
Princess Dominic a Radziwil, a lady of a most de- 
cided character, said, that it was enough to have 
been exposed to the loss of two millions of francs 
in rents, and that she would blow any man's brains 
out, who would come to carry off a horse to which 
she was very much attached. 

" As soon as the gates were again opened, the 
higher order of the inhabitants disappeared. I 
never saw them again. I must transcribe a procla- 
mation on this occasion, which General Dutaillis 
thought it his duty to publish, in order that he mi«-hfc 
raise the courage of the Poles, whom he thought- 
somewhat dismayed. 

" i Poles, the enemy is at your gates ; the Tartars 
are inundating the right bank of the Vistula. You 
must arm yourselves, and / see nothing but packing 
up. The great Napoleon looks down on you from 
the summits of the towers of Moscow (which was 
burned a month before) i to arms, and deserve to be 
addressed by him in these words, Poles, I am satis^ 
lied with you.' It was with this burlesque style, 
and with such strange ideas, that this gentleman 
hoped to animate the Poles, and, most likely, to give, 
them an idea of French taste and politeness. 

" While these things were going on in the Duchy 
more woeful scenes were taking place in Russia. The 
Emperor quitted Moscow. The necessity for this 
departure had been laid before him long before. He 
himself alone put it off, from a disposition of mind 
peculiar to himself, impatience of repose, which car- 



26 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

rying him with the same rapidity, and the same charm, 
over every side of a question, causes him not to attach 
himself to any, and loses an immense time in running 
them over. 

" The Emperor, acts with the greatest rapidity 
when he has taken his part; but it is a mistake to 
suppose that he is quick in taking that part ; he loiters 
(to make use of a common expression) and that is 
what happened to him at Moscow : he expected peace 
there with the most firm assurance ; he did not see a 
single Russian that he did not take for one who was 
sent to beg peace in the most suppliant manner. He 
was astonished when he did not see ambassadors ar- 
rive charged with the commission of suing for it. His 
mind unfixed and uncertain was carrying him to 
every kind of project. At one time the day was fixed 
for commencing the march to St. Petersburgh, namely 
the 2.9th of September; the Duke informed me of this 
in a dispatch of the 28th. At another time his di- 
rection w r as changed to Toula and the south of Rus- 
sia, that was the great road to Pultowa. In the midst 
of these fluctuations, time was going on, and the win- 
ter was approaching, concealing its rigours behind 
the ambush of a season unknown, and never equalled 
in fineness in these climates. The bulletins of the last 
days of October mention that the weather was as fine 
as in France during the most brilliant journeys to 
Fontainbleau : notwithstanding he was obliged to 
quit Moscow on the 16th of October. The retreat, 
properly speaking, had begun on the 14th. From 
that time a new universe appeared before my eyes, 
the great change which had happened in the world is 
dated from that time. 



TO WARSAW AN T D WILNA. 12:7 

11 I was charged with communicating this sad in- 
telligence to the council of ministers, deadening the 
blow as much as possible. Amidst the most formida- 
ble menaces against Petersburgh next campaign (no- 
thing less than burning it was determined), the duke 
designedly lost himself, by displaying various projects, 
all of which proved to me that the Emperor had no 
fixed plan. He spoke of marching to the South of 
Russia : and, in reality, that march was carried into 
effect as far as Kaluga. He said that Smolensk af- 
forded a formidable point of support for all the ope- 
rations of the army. It always appeared evident to 
me that the Emperor marched at hazard, and had no 
fixed plan. His conversation in Warsaw confirmed 
me in that belief. 

" It was but a little matter to inform the council 
of the retrograde motion of the army, that plunged 
them in despair : it was necessary to prevail on them 
to prepare every thing for the reception of that army 
on its return. That step presented a very great diffi- 
culty : it consisted in procuring the execution and 
keeping secret a measure too much extended in its 
own nature. It was moreover necessary to withdraw 
the council from those reproaches which were address- 
ed to them from Wilna, and to withdraw myself from 
the cries of those who looked upon every precau- 
tionary measure as an alarm, and every man of pre- 
caution as an alarmist; for in that situation were we 
then. 

"I had calculated that the army would arrive on 
the Vistula about the 15th of December, that it would 
experience great privations ; consequently I made a 
demand of having provisions and forage made ready 



128 NARRATIVE OF Ay EMBASSY 

for three hundred thousand men, and fifty thousand 
horses, together with all the things proper to replace 
whatever may be lost, or much worn on the march. 
Such a large storage of provisions could not take 
place in secret, nor be done in public, without ex- 
citing great alarms. On this subject arrangements 
were made with the agents of administration, for the 
purpose of avoiding all eclat, and disguising the mo- 
tives as far as possible. We succeeded, and in pass- 
ing through Posen on the 29th of December, the 
Prefect informed me that his contingent was ready, 
and that nobody had felt any uneasiness. 

" The duke transmitted to me the expression of the 
Emperor's dissatisfaction with respect to the want of 
co-operation on the part of the duchy. He wrote 
me w 7 ord that the duchy had done nothing— that was 
his expression. 

'■ I discovered that he was imposed upon by 
General Dutaillis, who, in his correspondence with 
the Prince of Neufchatel, whose creature (Tame 
damnte) he was, had made the most false representa- 
tion of the conduct of the duchy. This led to an ex- 
planation, in the course of which I found no difficulty 
in demonstrating to him that the accusation against 
the duchy was made without any knowledge of its 
finances, or of what it had done, or was preparing to 
do. He himself agreed that he was ignorant on these 
different subjects, and he must have understood, from 
the tone which I adopted in speaking with him, what 
were the sentiments which unfounded denunciations, 
dictated by ignorance, and a desire of encreasing his 
own value in the eyes of his employers, excited in my 
mind. But in order to secure the duchy against a re- 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 'j$§ 

nevval of such hostile attacks, I employed the council 
in drawing up and publishing a fair account of their 
administration from the opening of the campaign, 
which was to be addressed to the king previously to 
its being communicated to the public. This cut short 
all the attacks of malevolence. It is one of the things 
for which the council expressed their gratitude to me 
in the warmest terms. When I informed the duke of 
the measures which I had adopted, with respect to the 
army, he approved of them in the strongest manner, 
but not being able to divest himself altogether of his 
ordinary notions, he pointedly observed to me, that I 
was under a great mistake, in supposing that the army 
experienced all the wants which I imagined. But the 
principal opposition arose from the persons in sub- 
ordinate situations, with whom I was surrounded: 
they could not form an idea that the army could be 
reduced to seek a refuge on the Vistula. In the ha- 
bit of never entertaining any doubt upon any subject 
— of calculating only on their side — -of speaking in the 
most contemptuous terms of every thing which pro- 
ceeded from the enemy, these men sent forth cries of 
astonishment, and exclaimed, as against a sacrilege, 
when any one presumed to indulge in the slightest 
reasoning upon any thing that Was then passing. 
Continual combats were to kept up with this pre- 
sumptuous and unthinking race, to whom the revolu- 
tion was every thing, and the experience of past ages 
absolutely nothing. 

" Their astonishment was visible when it was an- 
nounced that winter quarters were to be taken up be- 
tween the Vistula and the Oder, provided the army 
could have the good fortune to arrive there. From 



150 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

these circumstances, a deep-rooted horror of pre- 
sumption and presumptuous men (that parent of so 
many disasters) has been fixed in my breast, which 
nothing has been able to overcome. It so happened 
that I had an example well calculated to correct the 
errors of these rash young men. 

w The Emperor had sent to Warsaw General Ko- 
nopka, by descent a Pole, a colonel of a regiment of 
Lancers, very much esteemed, who had particularly 
distinguished himself at the battle of Albufera against 
the English. He had been raised to the rank of ge- 
neral, and made colonel of the second regiment of 
Lancers of the guard, which he was partly to recruit 
in the duchy. He spent many months at Warsaw. 
It is impossible to imagine the blusterings with which 
he and his troop made the town ring. When they 
saw themselves 500 strong, they supposed themselves 
able to support the heavens on the points of their 
lances. The general was "persuaded that he might 
amuse himself with the intelligence with which he 
was furnished respecting the approach of the enemy 
— that he might even brave and provoke them 
with his little troop, and prolong his residence in 
the town of his birth, Slonim, apparently for the 
purpose of enjoying for some time longer the ho- 
mage of his fellow-citizens. What happened ? This 
man, so confident, was carried off 'on the 19th of 
October, at three o'clock in the morning, together 
with his regiment, his military chest, and all the 
effects. belonging to his corps. Happy had he him- 
self been the only victim of his imprudent -bluster- 
ing ! but lie enveloped in his misfortune the flower 
of the families of Poland, and the unfortunate con* 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 13 1 

tractors who had contributed to furnish- that re£i- 
ment. France here lost a considerable sum,, which 
the Emperor had advanced for the first expences in the 
formation of this corps, so soon dissolved. 

" In the mean time the Emperor arrived at Viasma 
and at Smolensk, after having lost all his horses. 
There the curtain fell down which had concealed him 
from my sight for a time, which I thought so vepy 
Ion 2. Will it be believed that the French ambassa^ 
dor at Warsaw had passed fourteen long days with- 
out hearing a word about him? That however was 
the fact. The time and suspence were horrible — I 
foresaw a catastrophe. With my eyes constantly fix- 
ed upon the map I marked out the point of Borisow, 
as the place where the fate of the world would be de- 
cided : that was the passage of the Beresina. I fol- 
lowed the movements of all the corps cTarmee; I saw 
them advance towards a common centre ; my uneasi- 
ness was extreme — I foresaw the calamity in its full 
extent. The Poles and some of those who were about 
me, opposed this idea as much as they could. The 
Russians had made themselves masters of the French 
magazines of Minski ; they had carried Borisow, and 
lined the Beresina. The Austrians and Saxons had 
succeeded in the battle of Izabelin, on the 19th of 
November, in repelling a corps of the Russian army, 
formed for the most part from the army of Moldavia,, 
and which was endeavouring to form a junction with 
it. It was only the 2d of December, that I was in- 
formed of the passage of the Beresina. The duke, in 
his usual way, made it a glorious victory. I recol- 
lect, on this occasion, that when I imparted it to Ge- 
neral Dutailli3, he answered, that the star of Napo-. 



132 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

leon had never before shone with more brilliant lus- 
tre. To such a degree had these gentlemen learned 
to substitute servile forms, and revolutionary phrases, 
in place of ideas, with which they were utterly unpro- 
vided. This very man, on the 6th of December, the 
day of the anniversary of the Emperor's coronation, 
wrote to the council of ministers, signifying to them, 
that if he were not placed in the ceremony just op- 
posite the ambassador of France, that he would come 
and take that place with a battalion. Mark — he was 
no more than the mere military commandant at War- 
saw, Behold the effect of the pride of a commandant 
among men, who, from their spirit, are only formed 
for obedience ! I was humbled for my country sake 
to see a superior agent of the French government ex- 
pose himself to the ridicule which this proposition 
excited in the council. 

" The 10th of December at length arrived. 

" I had just received a dispatch from the Duke of 
Bassano, announcing the speedy arrival of the corps 
diplomatique, which had passed the summer at Wilna. 
I was replying and pointing out the inconvenience of 
its residence in an open town, with the enemy in 
front, when suddenly the doors of my apartments 
'were thrown open, and a tall man entered, who, as he 
approached, supported himself on one of my secreta- 
ries of embassy— " Come with me," said this phan- 
tom. His head was enveloped in black taffety, his 
face was lost in the mass of fur within which it was 
sunk.. A : double armour of boots and fur made his 
wall* unwieldy. In short, it was a species of appari- 
tion. 1 rose, accosted him, and catching some traits 
of his profile I recognised him, and said, <J Ah! Is 



TO WARSAW AND WILXA. 133 

it you, Caulaincourt? where is the Emperor ?" " At 
the hotel d'Angleterre, He expects you." " Why 
did he not alight at the palace ?'• " He wishes not 
to be known." " Are you in want of any thing?" 
" Give us some Burgundy and Malaga." " The 
cellar, the house, and all things else are at your ser- 
vice ; but whither are you going ?" " To Paris.'* 
" And where is the army ?" " It is gone," said he, 
turning up his eyes to Heaven. " But what of the 
victory of Beresina, and the 6000 prisoners of the 
Duke of Bassano?" " That is all gone, by * * ■*. 
Some hundreds of men have escaped — We had some- 
thing else to do than to guard them." Then taking 
him by the arm, I said, " It is time that all the faith- 
ful servants of the Emperor should unite in telling him 
the truth." " Ah ! what a failure," said he, " but I 
have not to reproach myself with not having foretold 



it." 



" I hurried out and arrived at the hotel d'Angie- 
terre about half-past one o'clock. A Polish gen* 
d'armee guarded the gate ; the master of the hotel 
examined me, hesitated a little, and then allowed me 
freely to pass the threshold of his house. I saw a 
small carriage body placed on a sledge made of four 
pieces of fir: it had stood some ; crashes, and was 
much damaged. There were two other open sledges 
which had served for conveyance to General Lefebvre 
Desnouettes, another officer, the Mameluke Rustan, 
and a valet. This was all that remained of so much 
grandeur and magnificence. I thought I beheld the 
winding sheet carried before the great Saiadin. 

" The door of a room on the ground-floor was 
myteriously opened. A short parley took place. 



134 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

Rustan recognised me, and admitted me. Prepara- 
tions were making for dinner ; the Duke of Vicenza 
came, introduced me to the Emperor, and left me 
with him. He was in a small cold lower apartment, 
and had the window-shutters half closed, the better 
to preserve his incognito. An aukward Polish ser- 
vant kept blowing at a fire of green wood, which, re- 
bel to her efforts, diffused with a loud cracking far 
•more water over the stove than heat in the apartment. 
This spectacle of the degradation of human greatness 
had no charms for me. It was passing directly from 
the scenes at Dresden to this situation in a wretched 
inn. I had not seen the Emperor since that period, 
and I cannot describe what a crowd of new and pain- 
ful sensiments assailed my heart. 

" The Emperor was, according to his custom, 
walking about his apartment. Me had come on foot 
from the bridge of Praga to the hotel d'Angleterre. I 
found him wrapped up in a superb pelisse, lined with 
green, and with magnificent gold Branden burghs. 
The covering of his head was a kind of fur cap, and 

fris boots were also surrounded with fur. " Ah! 

Monsieur the ambassador f said he to me smiling. 

"I approached quickly, and with that accent 
which the feeling I experienced could only have ex- 
cited or excused in a subject towards his sovereign, 
I addressed him thus : " You look well. You have 
made me very uneasy ; but at length you are here. I 
£m happy to see you." This was spoken with a rapi- 
dity and a tone which ought to have shewn him what 
was passing within me, but he, unfortunate as he 
was, did not perceive it. A moment after I helped 
kins off with his pelisse. " How are you off in this 



TO WARSAW AND W1LNA. 135 

country, said he. Then returning to my own cha- 
racter, and placing myself at the distance from which 
emotions excusable in the circumstances in which I 
was placed had withdrawn me, 1 proceeded to trace 
with the precautions necessary to be observed -with 
all sovereigns, and particularly with a prince having 
such a temper as he whom I had to deal with, the 
actual state of the duchy. It was not brilliant : I 
had that very morning received the report of an affair 
which had occurred on the Bug near Krislow, in 
which two newly raised battalions had thrown down 
their arms on the second discharge. I had also been 
informed that out of 1200 horses belonging to these 
troops, 800 had been lost from want of care on the 
part of the new soldiers, and that 5000 Russians with 
cannon were marching on Zamosk. 

" I urged on the ground of prudence, of the dig- 
nity of the Emperor and the confederation, the quiet 
removal of the embassy and the council before the ar- 
rival of the enemy ; I pointed out the inconvenience 
of the diplomatic body residing at Warsaw, and spoke 
to him of the distress of the duchy and the Poles. 
This last idea he opposed, and asked with vivaeity, 
" Who has ruined them?" I replied, " What has 
been doing for these six years. The scarcity of last 
year and the continental system deprive them of all 
commerce." At these words his eyes were lighted 
up. 

" He proceeds, " Where are the Russians?" I 
told him. " And the Austrians?" " I. have 
not heard of them for a fortnight." " General 
Regnier ?" " Nor of him neither"— I informed; him 
of all the duchy had done for r the subsistence of the 



13£ NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

army. He knew nothing of it. I spoke to him of 
the Polish army. " I have seen none of them," said 
he, "during the campaign." I explained the reason 
of that, and why the dispersion of the Polish forces 
had at last rendered invisible an army of 82,000 
men. " What do the Poles want r" " To be Prus- 
sians if they cannot be Poles." " And why not Rus- 
sians '?" replied he with an air of irritation. I ex- 
plained to him the causes of the preference of the 
Poles to. the Prussian system of government. He had 
no idea of it ; but I was the better informed on the 
subject in consequence of some ministers of the 
duchy, who the day before remained long with me 
after dinner, haying concluded that the best thing 
they could do would be to cling to the Prussian go- 
vernment as a plank to save them in their shipwreck. 

" He said " We must raise ] 0,000 Cossacks. A 
lance and a horse is sufficient for them. With that 
force the Russians may be stopped." I discussed the 
idea, which appeared to me to deserve every sort of 
reprobation. He insisted. I resisted, and concluded 
by saying, " For my part I see no use in armies ex- 
cept those that are well organized, well paid, and uell 
kept up. All the rest is good for very little." 

iC I complained of some French agents, and when 
I observed that it was a pity to employ in foreign 
countries men who had neither decorum nor talents, 
he asked, " And where are these men of talents r" 
The course of the conversation had led me to speak 
of the little zeal the Austrians had found among the 
inhabitants of Volhinia. On this subject I adduced, 
the testimony of Prince Louis of Lichtenstein, whom, 
I had received at Warsaw, whither he came in con- 

.4 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 137 

sequence of a wound he had received on the Bug. A$ 
I was adding to his name an honourable epithet, 
which I considered justly his due, the Emperor look- 
ed at me sternly. I paused. " Well," said he, 
" this prince," repeating word for word my expres- 
sions, " continue." I perceived I had displeased 
him. 

" Soon after he dismissed me, recommending me 
to bring after dinner Count Stanislaus Potocki and the 
Minister of Finance, whom I had described as the 
two members possessing most credit in the council. 
Our interview had lasted about a quarter of an hour, 
and during that time the Emperor had never ceased 
to walk about with much agitation, as I had always 
been accustomed to see him. Sometimes he would, 
as is his habit, seem to fall into a profound reverie. 

" We met again at the hotel d'Angleterre, at three 
o'clock, he -had just arisen from table — " How long, 
have I been in Warsaw?" " Eight days." " No, 
only two hours," said he, smiling without any prepa- 
ration or preamble, "from the sublime to the ridicu- 
lous there is but a step. How do you do, Mr. Sta- 
nislaus, and you Mr, Minister of the Finances?" On. 
these gentlemen repeatedly expressing the satisfac- 
tion they felt at seeing him well after so many dan- 
gers, he replied, "Dangers! Not the least. Agita- 
tion is life to me : the more trouble I have the better 
I am. None but sluggard kings fatten in their pa- 
laces. Horseback and camps for me." From the 
idbUme^ to the ridiculous there is only a step. It was, 
plain that he considered himself as an object for the 
derision of all Europe, and this idea was to him the 
greatest of all punishments, .He said, u l find you 



138 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

are very much alarmed here." " It is because we 
know only what public rumour informs us." " Bah ! 
the army is superb, I have 120,000 men, I always 
beat the Russians ; they durst not stand before me. 
They are no longer the soldiers of Friedland and 
Eylau. I am going to raise three hundred thousand 
men. Success wilt render the Russians rash* I 
shall give them three or four battles on the Oder, and 
in six months I shall be again on the Niemen. I am 
more wanting on the throne than with my army. 
Assuredly, I leave it with regret, but Austria and 
Prussia must be watched, and on my throne I have 
more weight than at the head of my army. All that 
has happened is nothing: It is a misfortune — it is the 
effect of climate. The enemy is good for nothing — I 
beat him every where. They wished to cut me off 
at the Beresina. I laughed at that fool of an admiral, 
he could never articulate his name. I had good 
troops and cannon ; the position was superb, fifteen 
hundred toises of morass and a river." This was 
twice repeated. He added a good deal on strong and 
feeble minds, and mostly all that was inserted in the 
29th bulletin. He then proceeded. 

" It used to be otherwise. At Marengo, I was 
beaten until six in the evening ; next day I was 
master of Italy. At Essling, I was master of Austria. 
That archduke thought to stop me. He published I 
know not what. My army had already advanced a 
league and a half. I did not do him the honour to 
make any dispositions, and it is well known what the 
state of things is when I act so ; but I could not pre- 
vent the Danube from rising sixteen feet in one night. 
Ah ! had it not been for that, the Austrian monarchy 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 139 

was ended ; but it was written in Heaven that I 
should marry an Archduchess. [This was said with 
an air of great gaiety]. It has been the same with 
Russia. I could not prevent the frost. I was told 
every morning that I had lost 10,000 horses during 
the night. Well ! bon voyage. [This was repeated 
five or six times.] Our Norman horses are not so 
hardy as the Russian ; they did not survive nine de- 
grees of the frost. It is the same with the men. Look 
at the Bavarians ; there is not one of them remain- 
ing. Perhaps it will be said I stopped too long at 
Moscow. It may be so, but the weather was good ; 
the season was more advanced than usual. I ex- 
pected peace. On the 5th of October I sent Lau- 
riston with an overture. I thought of going to Pe- 
tersburgh. I have time for passing the winter in the 
southern provinces of Russia; at Smolensko. We 
will maintain ourselves at Wilna. I have left the 
King of Naples there, ah ! ah! What a grand politi- 
cal scene. He who risks nothing gains nothing. 
From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one 
step. The Russians have shewn themselves. The 
Emperor Alexander is beloved. They have clouds of 
Cossacks. That nation is something. The crown 
peasants love their government; the nobles have 
turned out on horseback. It was proposed to me to 
set the slaves free ; that I did not wish to do ; they 
would have made a general massacre, which would 
have been horrible. I therefore made regular war 
on the Emperor Alexander : but whoever could sup- 
pose they would have struck such a blow as the burn- 
jug of Moscow. They now attribute that to us, but 
it was really they. Such an action would have done 



140 NARRATIVE OT AN EMBASSY 

honour to Rome. Many Frenchmen would have fol- 
lowed me. Ah ! They are good subjects ; they will 
find me." 

" He then got into a rambling discourse on every 
subject, particularly on the levying the Cosack 
corps, with which he talked of stopping that Russian 
army, before which three hundred thousand French- 
men had melted away. In vain the ministers repre- 
sented the state of their country. He would yield no- 
thing. I did not mix in the conversation, except 
when an opportunity offered for commiserating the 
state of the duchy. He granted as a loan a sum be- 
tween two and three millions of Piedmontese mixed 
coin which had been for three months at Warsaw, and 
three or four millions in bills proceeding from contri- 
butions on Courland. I drew up the order for the 
minister of the treasury. The speedy arrival of the 
diplomatic corps was announced. " They are spies," 
said he : " I wish to have none of them at my head- 
quarters. They have come, however. They are no- 
thing but spies solely occupied in sending bulletins 
to their courts." 

" In this manner the conversation continued for 
three hours. The fire had gone out, and we all felt 
the effects of the cold. The Emperor, however, who 
regarded nothing, seemed to keep himself warm by 
his vehement utterance. To a proposal for travers- 
ing Silesia* he replied, "Ah! Prussia." At length, 
after again repeating three or four times his phrase — 
From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one 
step — asking whether he was known, and saying that 
he cared not — renewing the assurances of his protec- 
tion to the ministers, and recommending to them to 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 141 

take courage, he signified his wish to leave us. I once 
more assured him that nothing which concerned his 
service had been forgotten in the course of the em- 
bassy. The ministers joined me in addressing to him 
the most respectful and affectionate wishes for the 
preservation of his health and the prosperity of his 
journey. He replied, " I never was better; if I car- 
ried the devil with me I should be all the better for 
that." These were his last words. He then mount- 
ed the humble sledge, which bore Caesar and his for- 
tune, and disappeared. A violent shock which the 
vehicle received in passing out at the gate had nearly 
overturned it. 

" Such was word for word, this famous conversa- 
tion, in which Napoleon fully disclosed his bold and 
incoherent genius, his cold insensibility and the fluc- 
tuation of his ideas, among various diverging pro- 
jects, his past schemes, and his approaching dangers. 
It made too deep an impression to leave me in any 
doubt of not having reported it correctly. I have 
called myself strictly to account, and I have not been 
able to reproach myself with any omission or inac- 
curacy. 

" The prevailing sentiment which runs through 
the entire is, the fear which he discovers of the hisses 
with which he felt himself pursued, instead of that 
continual hosanna with which Europe, during fifteen 
years, had resounded. The conqueror's pride, and 
the vanity of the hissed poet, are observable in it from 
the beginning to the end, and display to the life the 
natural characteristics of a man, whose self-lave 
made him always fear an epigram more than a batta- 
lion. • .... 



142 NARRATIVE OF AN EMEASSY 

" I have been told that extracts of the above con- 
versation were circulated in Germany : of this I know 
nothing. I have been also told that these extracts 
were put down to my account. This imputation is 
unfounded, and has besides an odious appearance, in- 
asmuch as the publication at that time would have 
been a species of infidelity, which imputation, circum- 
stances prevent from applying to it just now. The 
conversation was then the property of the speakers, 
at the present day it belongs to the province of his- 
tory, and refers to an event which both with regard 
to things and persons is entirely consummated. 

" The Emperor's passing through Warsaw became 
the subject, as might be expected, of every conver- 
sation, and the report of the whole country. Nothing 
was more amusing than the letters which I received 
on that subject. Our agents vied with each other in 
all the extravagancies which that passing through 
Warsaw had excited. One of those gentlemen 
begged that a Gazette which announced that event 
should be interdicted. 

" The corps diplomatique arrived a few days after 
the Emperor. 1 exerted myself to perform every 
duty and to render every service due, as well to the 
public as to the personal character of each of the 
members of which it was composed, and which the 
misfortunes attached to their situation so justly claim- 
ed. One of them, the American minister, died a 
few leagues from Wilna, of an inflammation of the 
lungs, which the rapidity of the journey, in a season 
so rigorous, had brought upon him. This he owed 
to the mountebank tricks of the Duke of Bassano, 
who had amused the corps diplomatique with fetes 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 14S 

and fine words till the very moment that he inti- 
mated to them the order to depart in a few hours. 
This he termed refinement in politics ; one might find 
no difficulty in giving it another appellation. It was 
also useless for him to attend to the benedictions and 
panegyrics of which he was the object, as well as the 
company of strolling players, of which he was the ma- 
nager, who, under the appellation of the servants of 
the ministers of foreign relations, had passed the 
whole summer in performing plays at Wilna, This 
company was composed of inferior actors, of petty 
anacreontic authors ; and when a man of business 
was looked out for among this troop, it was much to 
be apprehended that one might lay his hand on some 
Colin or Jeannot. A considerable number of these 
gentlemen paid me a visit on their passing through 
Warsaw, where they left neither myself, nor the 
strangers who were about me, very deeply penetrated 
with a profound respect for French diplomacy. One 
of our ambassadors accredited to a great court, who 
was addressing to me dispatches for Wilna, did not 
fail to entreat me to forward the " bit of paper" for 
Wilna. At length the Duke of Bassano arrived on 
the 1.6th of December; I saw him enter the court of 
my hotel at eight in the morning, in an open sledge ; 
he was covered with hoarfrost, having travelled when 
the weather was from twenty to twenty-five degrees 
below the freezing point, and, wonderful to relate, he 
had slept the whole night— so strong was his consti- 
tution. General Lauriston accompanied him. His 
debut was quite bewitching; I warmed him as well 
as I was able. After breakfast he spoke on business 
almost in the same way as he used to write. What 



144 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

struck me most was, to see him convinced that we 
could maintain our post at Wilna. A few days be- 
fore this he wrote to me that the only matter in ques- 
tion with respect to stopping at Wilna was, respect- 
ing subsistence; such follies were never before wit- 
nessed, I then declared my intention of giving up 
business altogether and the embassy ; he calmed this 
first movement as well as he was able : he had my 
letters of recal in his pocket, but he had not as yet 
read them, he remained five or six days at Warsaw. 
It Was on that occasion that I had an opportunity of 
observing him somewhat more closely, and assuring 
myself of the irregularities of which he spent his days, 
and of his disposition to perpetual talking, to the in- 
terminable expectation of which his inferior agents 
are condemned. It was at this epoch that the scene 
of ingratitude with respect to M. Andre took place. 

" Judging of the duke from his employments and 
from those encomiums which a man of his rank has 
always at his disposal, I had ever looked upon him 
as a man of talents — at least, a man of an enlarged 
knowledge of the world. He possessed great advan- 
tages of appearing to be so in a distinguished man- 
ner : a nearer approach was by no means favourable 
to him ; he is then found to be heavy, abstracted, des- 
titute of the brilliant or agreeable qualities which he 
is supposed to possess, and I cannot charge this opi- 
nion respecting him of being altogether unjust. 

" The Emperor, on mounting his sledge, had given 
reins to his anger against me : he passed many hours 
in railing and inveighing against me. Arrived at 
Kowno, twenty-one leagues from Warsaw, at five 
o'clock in the morning, he wrote a letter of four pages 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 145 

to the duke. At the bottom of the first were these 
words — " I have seen the Abbe de Pradt at War- 
saw : he has told me all manner of things. It ap- 
pears to me that he possesses no quality fitting for his 
place. I have not signified any thing of this to him ; 
you have only to recal him." The remainder of the 
letter related to that levy of Cossacks from which he 
expected the salvation of Poland. Here then have 
we the Duke of Bassano charged with a commission 
which he must have supposed to be disagreeable to 
me. I should do him the justice to say he behaved 
with great delicacy in the business, as the following 
anecdote will shew : — The day after his arrival I pre- 
sented him a memorial on the inconvenience of con- 
tinuing the embassy ; I stated distinctly the reasons 
why I found it disagreeable ; I told him at length that 
this epoch of my life was assuredly that in which phy- 
sically and morally speaking I suffered the most. 

" In the conversation which the presenting of this 
memorial was the means of introducing, I complain- 
ed of the metamorphosis which I was obliged to un- 
dergo, from the character of an ambassador to that of 
a commissary. He answered me very naively, that 
a similar thing had happened to himself. I complain- 
ed, besides, of having been, without any respect for 
my character, thrust into a mission which had a most 
decided revolutionary complexion ; and I concluded 
with assuring him, that I was firmly resolved never to 
take any part in future in matters conceived without 
any participation on my part, directed contrary to my 
views — contrary to my manner of seeiug and acting, 
and which reduced me to the condition of a passive 
instrument. The duke read my memorial, heard me 



146 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

with the greatest kindness, applauded my determi- 
nation of quitting the Embassy, and allowed of my 
retiring. At the same time that he gave the most 
favourable turn to my resignation, he did not suffer 
me to suspect that he was in possession of that order, 
of which he was the bearer — I felt the value of this 
behaviour, when I became acquainted with the circum- 
stance ; and I am happy to have it in my power 
to make a report of what does him so much 
honour. 

" I made use of the liberty which the Duke had 
given me ; I prepared for my departure ; I thought 
that I should hasten it out of regard to my health, 
which had suffered very much from such scenes of 
bustle and confusion : and my manner of commu- 
nicating it to the public and to the council was agree- 
ably to this version. I no more suspected what had 
happened in this respect to Poland, than that which 
awaited me at Paris. 

" I took advantage of the last moments of my Em- 
bassy to render a service to the Austrians, to which 
I was determined by very many motives. I had 
been for seven months a witness of the fidelity, the 
efforts, and sufferings of that army; I had fre- 
quently defended it against the Poles, who were not 
backward in accusing it of studied delays. This 
army had twice saved the Duchy ; the campaign was 
evidently lost : the Prince of Schwartzenberg, almost 
abandoned to himself in a remote part of Lithuania, 
was left without information or direction in the midst 
of that confusion with which the catastrophe of the 
Grand Army was attended. He sent an officer to 
Warsaw to receive information from Baron de Baum, 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 147 

who was Commissioner for the Government of Gal-* 
licia to the Government of the Duchy. I had lived 
on the best terms with that Envoy ; he had frequently 
transmitt dto me the expressions of the satisfaction 
of the Cabinet of Vienna. One or two days before 
my departure he arrived at my house, and having 
introduced an officer to me, he informed me what the 
object of his mission was, adding, that he wished 
to be directed altogether by my counsels. I did not 
suffer him to wait long for my advice, and told him, 
that in the state in which things were, that I re- 
garded the sacrifice of one man more as an useless 

o 

piece of barbarity — that his army should refuse 
every offensive operation, and confine himself to 
follow the general movement of the retreat, re- 
serving the forces for more useful services to which 
he might be hereafter called. I am not able to paint 
the gratitude of the Baron, and that officer, in an 
adequate manner, — as for my part, I thought I did 
nothing more than my duty. 

" At length I took my leave of the Council of Minis- 
ters ; and they answered me by the letter annexed to 
this narrative. They appeared to have been sensibly 
affected by the letter I had written to them. I 
hope the publication of their letter will not be im«* 
puted to self-love, for every labour ought to have 
a proper recompense ; and every family have a right 
to enjoy their titles of nobility. The King of 
Saxony ordered his Minister for foreign affairs to 
write to me, and express his Majesty's satisfaction, 
and this has been repeated' upon subsequent oc- 
casions, 

l 2 



148 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

'* I have received great proofs of affection and of 
sorrow at parting with the people of Poland, and, 
if I can believe them, I am not in the number of 
those who, very culpable with respect to France, 
have caused the French name to be hated by the 
Poles. 

" I set out on the 27th of December, and travelled, 
during eighteen days, in fifteen degrees of frost. 
This was a great degree of hardship ; I would have 
thought beyond my force ; I was deceived ; I had 
need of all my strength to support the scenes which 
awaited me at Paris. I learned on my arrival, that 
the Moniteur had announced, the very next day 
after the Emperor's arrival, that I was deprived of 
my office of Grand Almoner. 

" I also found, on arriving, a letter from the Mi- 
nister of Police. This letter invited me to reserve 
my first visit for him — another letter from the Mi- 
nister of Public Worship, invited me to call at his 
house. 

" The attentions of such great personages bore 
rather a suspicious appearance. I had been also 
previously informed, that many persons, of whom I 
knew nothing, presented themselves to be informed 
of my arrival. It was clear that the storm was 
already collected. 

16 I presented myself to the Minister of Police ; he 
talked to me in general terms of the Emperor's dis- 
pleasure. He appeared to me to be acquainted 
with that which had been declared against the Duke 
of Bassano, whose incapacity was proclaimed by the 
public. As to the rest, he did not speak precisely on 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 14$ 

any point; listened to me for a long time when 
speaking on the affairs of Poland, and advised me 
by no means to present myself before the Emperor. 
I afterwards saw the Minister of Public Worship; 
he shewed me a letter by which the Emperor, at the 
moment of his arrival at Paris, enjoined him to 
order me to repair to my diocese. He was entirely 
ignorant of the motives of this order, and appeared 
to me to be affected at it. 

" From him I went to the house of the Duke of 
Bassano; he came up to me with a constrained air, 
and assuming a tone of voice which I perceived to 
be different from his natural manner, said to me, in 
broken accents, " Mr. Ambassador, I feel real pain 
in communicating to you the orders of his Majesty — 
read them." He then drew from his pocket the 
letter, dated from Kowno, and shewed me the article 
concerning myself. He had imagined that I would 
have been quite cast down by it; but it only caused 
me to laugh. He added that the Emperor had fre- 
quently told him, in a manner that shewed him to 
be sorely displeased, the bulletins, which he sup- 
posed to have come from Berlin, mentioned that I 
had spoken to him in a firm manner. I considered 
myself no more responsible for the bulletins of 
Berlin than for those of any other country, writings 
which, indited by mercenary hands, and those too 
either of ignorant persons or foreigners — translated 
from a foreign idiom, might, after the cascading of 
two or three translations, make a man say that which 
he never thought of. It might have happened that, 
in order to do me honour, I had been accommodated 
with this firm language, a Bulletinist not being pos- 



150 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY 

sibly able to conceive any thing superior to an act 
of resistance to the Emperor Napoleon. I am ac- 
quainted with this race of Bulletin makers — it is one 
of the most contemptible that is to be found. 

" The Duke expressed the satisfaction which the 
presenting of my memorial had given him, by which 
I demanded my recal, as it spared him the disagree- 
able necessity of discharging a commission so very 
harsh. I repeated the assurances which I had already 
given, of withdrawing myself from business, so 
long as matters would be conducted as I had seen 
them to be ; and I concluded with telling him, that 
the time was approaching in which the persons dis- 
graced by the Emperor Napoleon might be destined 
to become the favourites of the nation. 

" I then knew how to account for every thing, and 
could explain it from the displeasure which my con- 
versation at Warsaw had produced, and from the 
invectives thrown out against me in the course of the 
journey to Kowno, as well as from the act of de- 
priving me of the place of Grand Almoner, and the 
precipitation of the order for my repairing to my 
diocese ; for these were his first acts when he arrived 
in Paris — so sore was the wound, and so much need 
had it for the application of the first dressing of 



vengeance. 



* I set out for Mechlin the very day that the Em- 
peror ran unexpectedly to Fontainbleau, to force a 
signature of a Concordat* which proves that he was 
still less acquainted with the Pope than I was with 
Poland. He has frequently repeated that vain and 
insignificant imputation which he applies on all oc- 
casions, and which constitutes a part of that kind of 



TO WARSAW AND WILNA. 151 

reasoning of which he is made up. He happened 
to say at Mayence, in 1815, "I have committed 
two faults in Poland, the first, to send * a Priest 
there, and the second, not to make myself King of 
it." — He was mad enough to believe that placing 
the crown on his own head would be to render it 
immoveable. 

" In January, 1814, when one of the Magistrates 
of Paris resisted one of the revolutionary measures 
that Napoleon wished to have executed, he said to 
him, Ah well I with all your ability I see you would 
imitate the Archbishop of Mechlin. It is through 
him that I am no longer master of the world. 

" The night before the affair of Brienne, Napoleon 
slept in a cottage, where he received intelligence of 
the movements of the enemies that nearly surrounded 
him. After passing several hours of cruel suspence 
and anxiety, an aid-de-camp came to inform him, 
that the causeway leading to Brienne was again un- 
occupied ; in consequence of the direction which the 
enemy had taken, he jumped up, and with consider- 
able vivacity made use of an exclamation which be- 
trayed the ruling passion of his life, " I may yet/' 
said he, M be master of the world." 

" Such is the faithful recital of my Embassy to Po- 
land ; It may be depended upon as perfectly cor- 
rect. I have written it in the midst of great dangers, 
in order that I might not suffer materials to perish, 
which could not be found any where but with myself. 
May I be permitted to express a wish that all those 
who possess such materials for our history may 
piake a similar use of them — in a word ; let us make 
jthe history of our times clear. Hitherto nothing 



152 NARRATIVE OF AN EMBASSY, &C. 

has been written but romances, satires, or hymns. 
Truth — sang-froid — the connexion of the events one 
with the other — their dependence or concatenation— 
the character of the actors — nothing of this is to be 
found; the prism of the passions or of interest has 
discomposed every thing. The dove on leaving the 
ark was not more embarrassed than is the mind to 
find repose in the deluge of strange writings, in 
which, hitherto, the history of the Revolution has 
been composed. One knows not where to place 
his foot. This history can only be produced from 
the collection of materials similar to those which 
we have collected : and the assertion may be pre- 
viously hazarded, that those who only know this his- 
tory from the journals and from French writers, will 
experience a degree of astonishment equal to that of 
Epimenides when he awoke." 



JUS TIFIC AT0RY PAPERS, 153 



DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN PAGE 147, 



TO HIS EXCELLENCY Iff. DE PRADT, 



Monseigneur, 

The Council of Ministers, sensibly affected by 
the sentiments which your Excellency has expressed 
in taking leave of them, wishes to preserve the 
words addressed to them as a precious monument. 
Invited by them to make this request, I am also 
charged to testify the warm regret which has been 
excited by your departure. Under the most dif- 
ficult circumstances, to an indefatigable zeal in the 
service of your august Sovereign, which has never 
ceased to inspire you, you have added that unva- 
rying benevolence which cannot be exceeded. Your 
prudence, your rare talents, and your great virtues, 
still more precious, have constantly supported and 
encouraged us in prosecuting the efforts which our 
duty and our gratitude to our august Regenerator 
impose upon us. If these sentiments which your 
example is calculated to exalt, should merit your 
esteem, deign to believe that yours have made a 
deep impression on our minds, and that your name 
will always be honoured and cherished by every 
Pole, who, with us, had the happiness of knowing 
von. 

■% 



lS4i JUSTIFICATORY PAPERS, 

Accept, Monseigneur, this feeble homage, due 
to your virtues, as an indelible mark of gra- 
titude. 

I have the honour to be, with high consi deration 
Monseigneur, 
Your Excellency's most humble 

And most obedient Servant, 
The President of the Council of Ministers, 

Stanislaus Count Pctockj. 
Warsatv, Bee. 24, 1812. 



Monseigneur, 

I have received two letters, which you did me 
the honour to address to me on the 22d and 23d of 
December. I have learned, with considerable re* 
gret, that you have ceased to fill a station, in which, 
though I had but few occasions of being personally 
concerned, I was satisfied with the connection be- 
tween us, in a country where I had the honour of 
being born, and where you was esteemed by every 
distinguished and well-informed person ; where your 
worth was also appreciated by a Sovereign, the 
friend of yours, whose approbation, always pure, 
is never bestowed but upon virtue and real merit. 
The King has charged me to express these senti- 
ments to you on his part, as well as his gratitude 
for the interest and good-will you have constantly 
shewn in promoting the happiness of his people and 
government. 

Le Comte De Senft, 

Dresden, Jan. 4, 1813. 



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